Dhaka to face rolling blackouts as two power plants go offline, says minister

The national power grid is down nearly 3,000MW, which may take days to fix

Bangladesh is facing a power shortfall of nearly 3,000MW after two power plants went offline due to technical faults, the power, energy, and mineral resources minister has said.

Iqbal Hasan Mahmud told parliament on Sunday that load shedding was already under way across different parts of the country, and that Dhaka would not be spared.

"This is a national crisis. Let us all come together and make a united effort to overcome it," he said.

He expressed hope that the situation would improve within two days, adding that load shedding would ease once it did.

The minister explained that one plant had been forced to halt production due to a leak in its boiler tube, while rough seas in the Bay of Bengal were preventing coal from being unloaded at a second plant, keeping it offline as well.

He did not name either facility.

"Nearly 3,000MW have dropped out of my transmission line because of this," he added.