Bangladesh goes dark as power outage continues

The government says the power restoration process is under way but has not made it clear when the work will be done.

A massive blackout hit Bangladesh after the collapse of the national grid Saturday morning.

The restoration ran into hurdles in the evening. Power Secretary Monowar Hossain called for calm, saying they were trying their best to restore power.

Capital Dhaka and most of Bangladesh submerged in darkness as the available supply was inadequate to meet demand.

The biggest outage in memory triggered worries and rumours prompting authorities to form a committee to look into the incident.

"It (power restoration) will take time," State Minister for Power and Energy Nasrul Hamid said in the evening without specifying how long.

Earlier, reports said power had been restored in certain pockets across the districts.

State Minister Hamid said they had hastened the recovery process and had even recovered 700 megawatts of power.

The haste, however, caused another grid failure.

"We are now moving slowly and have cut Dhaka's power supply," he said, adding: "We are restoring power in areas outside Dhaka. We can't afford another failure now."

Patients and medical help seekers suffered much due to the outage. The sudden blackout has pushed the prices of candles up.

Hundreds were seen lining up in front of petrol stations in Dhaka to get diesel for power generators.

Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB) Managing Director, Masum-Al-Beruni said a seven-member committee had been formed to probe the national grid collapse.

A PGCB media statement said the high level committee, led by additional power division secretary, would identify the cause of the power failure, ascertain responsibilities and recommend measures to prevent recurrence.

It has been asked to submit its findings within three working days.

Power Secretary Islam said there was a supply of 200MW against a demand of 6,600MW on Saturday evening. Another grid failure struck then.

"We are working to restore power," he said.