Body to probe Shikalbaha Power Plant fire

A probe committee will be formed to investigate Sunday's fire incident at Shikalbaha Power Station in Chittagong. The committee will also assess the losses caused by the fire to the 60 Mega Watt power plant situated in the port city's Karnaphuli Police Station area. The fire erupted at a 132KV transformer of the power plant around 4pm on Sunday due to technical fault. Meanwhile, the power plant's manager Bhuban Bijoy Dutta said the power connections started to return to normalcy at 7:30pm, nearly four hours of suspension. Power supply to some upazilas in southern area of Chittagong district, Cox’s Bazar and Bandarban started resuming on Sunday evening. Eight fire-fighting units rushed to the spot and doused the fire around 7pm. Contacted, Chittagong Power Development Board (PDB) chief engineer (distribution-South region) Azharul Islam said a transformer was damaged totally due to the fire, which snapped the power supply in different upazilas of south Chittagong and all areas of Cox’s Bazar and Bandarban districts. Later, the electricity supply to Cox’s Bazar and Bandarban started resuming from 7:30pm. However, some parts of south Chittagong still remained in dark till Sunday late night, according to a news agency.
- biplab