BAHAWALPUR, June 25 Several people suffered minor injuries as rain and accompanying windstorm led to collapse of mud-houses and billboards here on Thursday night.

Electricity poles and trees were uprooted and transformers went out of order, disrupting power supply to many localities. This was the heaviest rain of the summer so far.

Reports said many people were given first-aid at Bahawal Victoria Hospital till late in the night. If the strong wind made weather pleasant, power failures inconvenienced the people.

Executive Engineer Muhammad Iqbal Joya of Mepco claimed the company had suffered heavy losses as transformers and poles had collapsed. More than 100 localities remained without electricity for 12 hours and that also led to unavailability of water.

Mepco could not restore electricity to many localities till the filing of this report (on Friday).

Officials, however, said the field staff had been working hard to restore electricity to the affected areas.

SCHOLARSHIP Four Islamia University Bahawalpur students have won the US under-graduate Fulbright scholarships.

Romana Nasar, Rubab Zahra, Ambreen Akram and Zara Ijaz of the bio-chemistry and bio-technology department are among the 50 students who have won the scholarship from Pakistan.

IUB Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Belal A. Khan felicitated the students on “winning laurels to south Punjab”.

According to the department chairman, Prof Dr Faizul Hasan Naseem, the girls will leave for the US in August to study a full semester in a known university. They would be conferred degrees by the IUB, he said.

AMBULANCES The board of management (BoM) of Bahawal Victoria Hospital has approved the purchase of five high-roof ambulances.

The meeting also approved Rs700,000 as monetary assistance to the hard workers of the hospital and its allied college.