No relief in sight as power outages continue to disrupt Karachi’s water supply for third straight day
KARACHI: The city’s already fragile water supply took another hit on Monday when supply from Hub Pumping Station was suspended due to a fault in K-Electric’s (KE) main cable.
This was the third consecutive day of power failures at key pumping stations disrupting distribution across the metropolis.
The Karachi Water and Sewerage Corporation (KWSC) said that the power suspension resulted in a daily water shortfall of 85 million gallons per day (MGD) for the city.
KWSC says main cable fault at Hub Pumping Station results in shortfall of 85 MGD; KE claims power supply restored via alternative means
The outages come as the city has been grappling with a severe water crisis for the past two months.
While the city faced severe water shortage during the three days of Eidul Azha, the supply was disrupted in several parts of the city on May 30 after the KE carried out a forced shutdown at the Dhabeji Grid to urgently repair a major technical fault in the Power Transformer No. 1.
The shutdown knocked out 10 of the 21 pumping units at the Dhabeji Pumping Station, suspending water supply to several areas.
Then the crisis escalated in the early hours of Saturday when power to the North East Karachi (NEK) Water Pumping Station failed at 3:27am due to a fault in K-Electric’s main supply cable. The outage halted K-II Pumping Station operations, disrupting supply in several parts of the city. The city faced an immediate shortfall of 54 MGD.
The power was finally restored, bringing K-II and K-III back to normal operations. However, the day-long disruption had already caused a cumulative shortfall of 122 MGD.
On Monday, the city’s water woes continued as a fault in K-Electric’s main cable suspended power to the Hub Pumping Station.
The three-day string of power-related failures has compounded a water crisis that has persisted for the past two months, piling misery on people in the scorching weather. He said that the supply to the station was affected due to a cable fault. “KE’s technical teams remain in coordination with representatives of the water board to ensure continued support and operational stability,” the spokesperson added
Published in Dawn, June 2nd, 2026
