31 hours after massive outage, power supply is restored in some parts of Sylhet

Engineers have restored power connection to some parts of Sylhet after 31 hours of outage following a fire incident at a grid substation in the city that disrupted a transmission line.

The local authorities will continue resuming power supply in all areas gradually if everything goes as planned, said Khandaker Mokammel Hossain, the chief engineer (sales and distribution) of Sylhet Power Development Board.

Power was back on in many areas of the city after a successful test transmission, Mokammel told reporters on Wednesday.

Two transmitters of the national grid line caught fire at the Power Development Board's 33 kV grid substation in Kumargaon of Sylhet around 11am on Tuesday. Since then subscribers of Sylhet’s PDB and Rural Electrification Board have been without electricity.

About 400 workers have been working since the accident, Mokammel said.

The repair work on the Kumargaon grid substation was completed at 4:30pm on Wednesday. Power supply restarted at the Division 1 and 2 after 6pm on Wednesday as no technical error was detected initially, Mokammel said.

The authorities also began using some of the repaired pillars experimentally.

Two of the 25/41 MBA of transformers worth Tk 700 million were burnt in the fire.

Besides these, a 33 kV feeder and bar have been damaged, according to the authorities.

PDB was trying to restart power with one of the two burnt transformers after repair. As a result, power will be distributed to the feeders after rationing the loads.

A power transformer was brought to Sylhet from Gazipur around 2pm. Power will be supplied to the entire Sylhet metropolis after installing the new transformer, Mokammel said.

The authorities initially suspect that the fire erupted from the transmitter's fuel oil and the initial damage from the fire is estimated at about Tk 2 billion.

The authorities have formed a four-member committee to investigate the reason behind the incident.