Grid failure triggers nationwide blackout

Telecommunications snapped nationwide while hospitals, homes and factories suffered most for power outages for hours, amid hot and humid weather, following national grid failure Tuesday.
Prolonged on-again, off-again power supply through load-shedding for curtailed generation owing to fuel dearth during past months finally climaxed into the blackout, for reasons not known yet.
Government authorities formed a few probe committees to fix the problem and responsibility for the major debacle in the country's power sector.
Reports say most parts of the country were left without electricity, affecting utility services and causing immense sufferings to commoners and businesses.
Almost all the power plants across the country started tripping in tandem following the national grid failure that struck at 2:04 pm.
Country's all divisions, save some districts in Rangpur, were affected badly by the blackout.
The national grid failure might have originated from a place at Ghorashal or Shiddhirganj, State Minister for the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources (MPEMR) Nasrul Hamid told the FE.
"I have instructed constituting two separate committees to investigate the cause of the national grid failure," he said.
One committee will be constituted by a third party involving people outside the state-run power entities and another involving the ministry and other related government officials, he added.
"A problem in the eastern part of the national power grid caused the problem, resulting in power outages in Dhaka, Chattagram, Sylhet, Cumilla and Mymensingh," an MPEMR statement said.
Electricity supply, however, started resuming after evening in different parts of the country, especially outside Dhaka city.
Power supply also restarted in some parts of Dhaka city, including Gulshan, Baridhara, Mirpur and Uttara, after four hours of the transmission failure.
"I have instructed for going slow in restoring power supply in entire Dhaka city due to heavy power load in the capital," Mr Hamid said.
Power supply in most areas across the country, however, was restored at around 8:20 pm, said a senior power ministry official.
Despite repeated attempts, managing director of the state-run Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB) Golam Kibria could not be reached for comments over the national grid failure.
The PGCB is the lone authority for laying down and maintaining national power grid in the country.
Nasrul Hamid and State Minister for the Ministry of Information and Communication Technologies Zunaid Ahmed Palak kept their facebook followers updated over the power-supply situation from their facebook-verified accounts.
Sources said most hospitals in the capital except some major ones got affected and faced tremendous disruptions due to the blackout, triggering immense sufferings for critical patients.
On the other hand, women and children, who stayed at the residences, also were worst sufferers from the outages.
"Both indoor and outdoor patients are currently facing agony and aguish at my hospital," managing director and chief executive officer (CEO) of Samorita Hospital Mr Haroon Ltd told the FE.
His hospitals also were forced to postpone some major surgical emergency operations, he said.
Samorita hospital may face massive miseries if power system does not resume by 8:00 pm, Mr Haroon added.
"Critical and emergency patients admitted into Intensive Care Units (ICUs), Coronary Care Units (CCUs) and the operating theatres (OTs) are being treated without any disruption as electricity is being provided through electric power generators," said Deputy Director (Incharge) at Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) Dr Md. Ashraful Alam.
Amidst this temporary national crisis, the DMCH has taken requisite measures to provide uninterrupted power supply through the power generators, Alam said.
An official at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University Hospital (BSMMU) said the patients admitted into ICUs and CCUs are being provided the required services without any disruption.
"The hospital's temporary power system gave the major and emergency services for the indoor patients through the generators," he added.
Afroza Akter, a resident in the city's Mohammadpur area, said she and her 3-year-old baby were in misery and they came out from their residence to get rid of hot weather.
Even they were facing dearth of water, she added.
People rushed to filling stations to buy diesel to run generators in factories, offices and households.
Md Monir Hossain, caretaker of an apartment in Khilgaon, who had been waiting in queue at Hazipara CNG Filling Station, said, "Usually we store fuel to run generator for two to three hours of load-shedding per day.
"But today fuel ran out at around 5:00 pm as the generator had to operate for more than three hours at a stretch."
Like Mr Hossain, many people came to that filling station with five-or ten-litre gallons in their hands to buy mostly diesel.
Agreeing to the overwhelming situation, Bangladesh Petroleum Dealers, Distributors, Agents & Petrol Pump Owners' Association President Mohammad Nazmul Hoque told the FE: "Filling-station operators in the capital and some other districts have seen unusual rush of people to buy fuel."
He said due to recent increase in load-shedding, petrol-pump operators have seen increased amounts of fuel sales to general people in gallons but today (Tuesday) abnormal number of people came briefly fearing long power outage.
Bangladesh Cold Storage Association outgoing president Md Mosharaf Hossain said their cold storages may see trouble if the power outage continued for over 36 hours.
He said, "Load-shedding usually doesn't harm us that much as the products, mostly potato, fruits, and ginger, which are stored in closed chambers, can be kept cold for over 24 hours."
But if the power outage continues for more than 24 hours, cold storages need to power up with generators or quality of products will start to deteriorate, he said.
Prices of candles and charge lights saw an upswing as the commoners thronged shops in huge numbers to light up their offices and households.
Many shops ran out of candles due to abrupt rise in demand.
Mobile telephone networks were also been affected with the blackout as the performance of mobile-network equipment was sliding till the filing of this report at night.
Many business houses and shopping malls were forced to shut operations due to the electricity failure.
Many automated teller machine (ATM) booths of the country's commercial banks were also out of operation, pushing the clients at bay, clients alleged.
Telecommunications and internet services faced disruptions across the country during the blackout.
Association of Mobile Telecom Operators of Bangladesh (AMTOB) released a statement in this regard on Tuesday, announcing the disruption may happen due to power outage.
"Due to national power grid failure, telecommunications services may be disrupted in some parts of the country. We are sorry for the inconveniences," reads the statement.
The statement came around 4:30pm, two and a half hours after the power outage.
However, the telecommunications network was unavailable as power was not restored until filing this report at 8pm in most parts of the country.
Additionally, subscribers also reported issues with mobile internet and SMS services.
The blackout was, however, boon for many industries and factories as they got significant volume of natural gas supplies with sufficient pressure as natural gas supply was diverted there due to non-operation of most gas-guzzling power plants, industry-insiders said.
Officials said previously the entire country had faced blackout at around 11:30 am on November 1, 2014 due to failure of the national grid, while synchronizing electricity import through Bangladesh-India power interconnection line.
Electrify-supply situation was restored after 10 hours, said a senior PGCB official.
Most recently, power supply tripped in Rajshahi, Khulna and Barishal divisions on September 6, 2022 due to a transmission-line failure at Ishwardi.
Electricity supply then was restored after around an hour.

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