KARACHI, July 19 A massive power breakdown in the country's premier commercial and industrial hub, of 12 to 24 hours in some parts of the city, compounded the misery of the people already suffering a near-disaster after Saturday's downpour which flooded residential areas, including the posh localities of Clifton and Defence Society.

Protesters took to the streets on Sunday to vent their anger against the Karachi Electric Supply Company, blocking roads, burning tyres and damaging a department store. A child was reportedly killed

during a protest outside the

KESC complaint centre in North Nazimabad's Hayderi locality late in the night, as reports were coming in of the protests spreading to other areas of the city.

This was the second major breakdown of the power generation, transmission and distribution systems of the KESC, which previously took almost one day to restore power supply to a few areas which plunged into darkness on June 17.

Drains, made ineffective by a high tide, overflowed and streets turned into veritable rivers. Pumps employed to drain out water did not function because there was no electricity and not enough fuel to run them. Hundreds of vehicles were seen on main roads and streets, abandoned by their owners when they were submerged by rushing water or when their engines stalled.

Till late Sunday night, 28 people had died in rain-related incidents.

The figure included four members of a family who died when the roof of an adjacent building fell onto their house.

Train and airline schedules were badly affected and thousands of passengers were stranded at the airport and the Cantt railway station.

Rangers and police fired teargas shells to disperse violent protesters in some parts of the city, including Punjab Colony and Baloch Colony.

Enraged residents complained that they were facing a serious water shortage in the absence of electricity for more than 24 hours.

The KESC system collapsed when a 500kVA line from Guddu to Dadu and the Hubco-Jamshoro link were damaged on Saturday evening, leaving the entire city without electricity.

Initially, the power utility's management maintained that it was waiting for the Jamshoro grid station to resume functioning. Then a KESC spokesperson in a statement on Sunday claimed that the utility's systems did function under heavy rainfall throughout the day despite the drizzle that continued till Saturday evening.

However, lightning at both the NTDC/Wapda lines at Jamshoro brought the national grid down at 9.43pm, the spokesperson said.

Deaths

The four deaths in a family occurred in the Garden police limits on Sunday when part of the roof of an adjacent multi-storey building collapsed and landed over their small house.

Police and Edhi sources said that the incident occurred apparently due to heavy rain.

The body of a six-year-old child was fished out from the Lyari River, while in a similar incident, Edhi sources said, the body of an eight-year-old girl was fished out from the same river near Mohammadi Colony, Mauripur.

Two young men drowned in a storm-water drain in Qayyumabad.

Two brothers died in Moosa Colony when the wall of their house fell on them. The incident occurred in the limits of the Gulberg police station. Police said the wall had been built without proper support and it collapsed in the aftermath of the rain.

Three men, including an employee of the KESC, were electrocuted.

Edhi sources said that in Shanti Nagar, Baldia Town, a live electric wire snapped and fell on 25-year-old Mustaqeem, who died on the spot. The body was sent to the Civil Hospital for legal formalities.

A KESC employee, Qalandar Bux, was electrocuted when he was attending to a complaint in Lyari. The body was shifted to the Civil Hospital. In Korangi, 40-year-old Noor Mohammad was killed when a wire fell on him. The body was shifted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre.

Rainfall

Over 130 millimetres -- over five inches -- of rain was recorded in three hours on Saturday night, between 9pm and midnight, which crippled the fragile drainage infrastructure of the city, leaving thousands of people drenched and literally marooned on the roads.

The total rainfall in 24 hours, between 8am on Saturday and 8am on Sunday, according to the Met office was recorded at 205mm -- over eight inches -- almost breaking the 32-year-old record when 207mm of torrential rain lashed the city on July 1, 1977.

The fragile drainage network of the city, where many of the natural storm-water drains have been encroached upon, could not cope with the three-hour-long cloudburst.

Almost the whole city was submerged in water with low-lying areas giving the look of small lakes and ponds, leaving thousands of people trapped in traffic jams.