Power supply restored to many parts of Bangladesh after major grid failure

Nasrul Hamid says it will take some more time to restore power to all of Dhaka due the 'excessive load' in the city

Power supply to many areas of Bangladesh has started to normalise hours after a trip on the national grid knocked down the connection to nearly half of the country.

Power outages hit large swathes of Dhaka, Chattogram, Sylhet and Mymensingh divisions after the grid failure in the eastern zone on Tuesday, officials said.

The trouble started around 2 pm due to a 'technical glitch', according to the state-run Power Grid Company of Bangladesh.

State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid said power returned in some areas four hours after the outage.

In a Facebook post, he said power would be back “at the soonest” and called for patience as engineers and technicians were working to repair the national grid transmission lines.

In another post around 7 pm, he said power was quickly being restored to Dhaka and its adjacent areas. He added that power had partially returned in Dhaka, Gazipur, Chattogram, Sylhet, Narayanganj and Siddhirganj.

However, it would take some more time for power to be fully restored due to the excessive load in the capital.

ABM Badruddoza Sumon, a spokesperson for the company, said in the evening that power was back in the entirety of the Sylhet zone and most parts of Tangail, Kishoreganj, Mymensingh, Jamalpur, Manikganj, Gazipur and Chattogram.

However, some parts of Dhaka and Cumilla remained without power well into the evening. Badruddoza said power will be restored to these areas soon.

State Minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak said started to return to normal in some areas and it might take until 8 pm to restore the connection to Dhaka and 9 pm to Chattogram.

In a Facebook post at 5 pm, Palak said power connection became normal up to the Amin Bazar grid.

“Restoration is a lengthy and complex process even if the power grid trips for a second.”