After the second-time collapse of the national grid at 4:30pm on Saturday, some units at different power stations resumed generation, producing about 1,000 MW of electricity. But it has not yet been possible to supply electricity to the capital city from those generation units, keeping it along with many parts of the country still in darkness as of 8pm. “So far, some units at Shahjibazar in Sylhet, Mymensingh RPCL and Ashuganj stations returned to production with generating a limited level of electricity. All together, they generate some 1,000 MW of power,” said PDB director Saiful Hasan. He said engineers were making their all-out efforts to divert the produced electricity to capital Dhaka. Nazrul Hasan, the Managing Director of DPDC, which is responsible for power distribution at city’s Eastern and Southern parts where most important installations like the presidential palace and Prime Minister’s Office are located, said they are yet to receive electricity from the generation sides. “We’re given a message we’ll get the power supply shortly,” he maintained. The areas under the jurisdiction of Desco, including Gulshan, Banani, Baridhara, Mirpur, Uttara and Tongi, were also in darkness till filing of this report. Desco chief engineer Habibur Rahman said they hope to get the power supply from the power stations within a few hours. The national power grid collapsed again at 4:30pm, shortly after partial resumption of power supply. With the second time failure of the power grid, the entire country plunged into darkness, inflicting sufferings on people and hurting the business hard. Earlier, the national power grid suffered the breakdown at about 11:30am following a major technical glitch at the grid line receiving electricity from India, disrupting both the power distribution and generation. “Possibly, the technical glitch took place at Baharampur point from where India supplies electricity to Bangladesh grid substation at Bheramara point,” managing director of Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB) Masum Al Beruni told UNB. After the disaster, the entire power transmission and distribution collapsed, plunging the country into blackout. – UNB, Dhaka.
