LAHORE: Rain and thunderstorm in Lahore and adjoining areas played havoc with the Lahore Electric Supply Company (Lesco) system, leaving a number of people without power supply for almost 24 hours.

The situation also led to water issue, especially in Lahore where a huge population is dependent on the supply from the Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) through operation of hundreds of tubewells.

“Erratic power supply and fluctuation rendered home appliances unworkable at many places as transformers, distribution cables and feeders developed faults,” said Abdur Rehman, a resident of Faisal Town’s HBFC Colony.

“Whenever rain or windstorm occurs, we face a great deal of inconvenience. Power supply was disrupted around 11pm on Thursday and there was no restoration the whole night. Extremely low voltage prevented use of appliances till Friday night when the fault was eventually rectified,” Rehman told Dawn.

Similar complaints poured in from other parts of the city and the power was restored after 24 hours.

An official admitted the problem and said 40 or so transformers had stopped working due to windstorm. After the windstorm slowed down, we started work to energise the transformers one by one but we couldn’t do so due to heavy rain which also caused many 11kV feeders to trip,” he explained.

The windstorm on Thursday night damaged the Lesco distribution system in Lahore, Okara, Kasur, Sheikhupura and Nankana Sahib. It not only damaged hundreds of transformers and cables but also uprooted poles and affected other installations.

Faiz, a resident of Kapurthala House in Lesco’s Islampura subdivision, complained that the power breakdown persisted for a day. It also triggered water unavailability, he said, adding that the power supply eventually resumed in our area around 10pm on Friday.

Ikram, a resident of Journalists Colony, said a fault emerged in a transformer and people spent many hours without electricity in oppressive weather. He said his complaints to the SDO and the Shalamar EXEN proved futile.

Lesco Chief Executive Officer Chaudhry Muhammad Amin said rain and windstorm resulted in tripping of 230 feeders suspending electricity supply to various parts of Lahore and other areas.

“Since our teams under the safety precautions cannot work to fix the faults during rain, it delayed power restoration. We succeeded in restoring power to a majority of the affected areas by Friday evening,” he claimed.

Published in Dawn, June 18th, 2022