Nationwide Blackout Hits Bangladesh

A massive nationwide electricity blackout hit Bangladesh on Saturday — leaving Dhaka and other cities looking like ghost towns, with homes, businesses and shops plunged into darkness.

Mosques which use loudspeakers to call for prayers five times a day fell eerily silent and houses were darkened.

Authorities blamed the outage in the densely-populated nation of 155 million on a transmission line failure.

Water supplies were hit as most of the pumps which lift groundwater could not function.

“I don’t know how such a disaster can happen,” fumed laundry operator Ataul Hakim.

Fish traders were furious at a lack of ice to keep their supplies fresh. One trader, Robiul Islam, said he would lose 5,000 taka ($700) as he could not preserve his stock.
The blackout occurred just before midday.

Power was restored in some parts of the capital Dhaka after several hours, but engineers were working late into the night to restore the supply nationwide.

“We hope we can restore most of the power by midnight. We regret the failure and we urge people to be patient,” power ministry spokesman Saiful Hasan told AFP.

Local media said the problem stemmed from a technical problem at an electrical substation distributing power from India, but government officials would not confirm the reports.

All areas linked to the national electricity grid had been hit, another senior power ministry official, Masud Alberuni, told AFP.

The national grid “tripped” and “all the power-generating stations in the country automatically shut down in a cascading effect,” Alberuni said.
The outage marked the first time the whole country has been without power since November 2007 when Bangladesh was hit by a devastating cyclone, Alberuni added.