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.