DERA ISMAIL KHAN, May 5: Electric supply remained suspended in the entire district and its adjacent tribal areas of South Waziristan Agency for more than two hours on Sunday when a breaker of bank capacitor 132 KV installed at the main grid station in D.I. Khan caught fire due to heavy search current which travelled back from Paroa grid station.

The main 132 KV cable was damaged at Paroa grid station on Sunday morning and the flow of 132 KV current travelled back to D.I.Khan grid station. Due to overload at bank capacitor, the breaker of one of the main bank capacitors exploded and caught fire.

Officer in charge of the grid station Zafar Iqbal, who was on duty, rushed to the venue where the installations were on fire. Zafar and other staff members started extinguishing the fire with the help of existing facilities. The fire brigade was also informed but before its arrival, the fire was brought under control.

Executive engineer operations Said Ghaffar and sub-divisional engineer cantt Shahid Khan also reached the spot and supervised the operation to restore the power supply.

The damaged breaker was removed and the power supply was restored within two hours.

According to Said Ghaffar, if the fire had not been controlled within 15 minutes, it would have caused a heavy loss.

PESCO VERSION: The fire, which erupted in the D.I. Khan grid station when the bank capacitor exploded as a result of overload, inflicted a loss of Rs1.2 million to the Peshawar Electric Supply Company, a spokesman for Pesco said, adding that two insulating poles were also damaged.