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KARACHI, March 23: Hundreds of power breakdowns occurred on Tuesday despite the fact that mercury came down to 36 degrees Centigrade from Monday's 38.5 degrees Centigrade.
A resident of Gulistan-i-Jauhar, Block 16, told Dawn that his locality lost electricity around 2am. "I have a 10-month-old son who began to cry in the heat. I continued to fan him as he slept all night. The power supply was finally restored at around 4am. The child was also plagued by mosquitoes despite our efforts to keep them away," said the resident.
Another resident of Gulistan-i-Jauhar, Block 15, said that his locality had been without electricity throughout the afternoon. "According to our thermometer at home, the temperature was 36 degrees centigrade in the afternoon.
I called my regional complaint centre. Karachi Electric Supply Corporation officials told me that a fault had occurred in a transformer. It took them almost four hours to rectify the fault," he said.
A resident of Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Block 4A, said that a nightlong power shutdown did not allow him to talk to his son in the United States on the Internet. "A lot of people use computer softwares to talk to their relatives living in North America.
These computer softwares are much cheaper than telephone calls. One can talk to the relatives living in North America at night because of the time difference," he explained.
A resident of Garden East off Jamaat Khana said his locality had been facing an electricity crisis for the past three weeks. "I fail to understand why the KESC and the Frontier Works Organization cannot coordinate with each other. Aren't they both run by the army?"
A spokesman for the KESC said that the power breakdown in Gulistan-i-Jauhar, Block 17, had been because of the tripping of a pole-mounted transformer which occurred at 12.35am.
He said the power breakdown in Gulistan-i-Jauhar, Block 15, on Tuesday was because of a fault in the breaker of a pole-mounted transformer. He said the 74 complaint centres of the KESC had received only 800 complaints on Tuesday.
