Investigators start looking into Bangladesh grid disaster

The grid failure plunged more than half of Bangladesh into darkness on Tuesday

The committee to investigate the national grid failure that plunged more than half of Bangladesh into darkness for up to eight hours has begun its work. 

The seven-strong panel, after the inclusion of an expert from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, visited several power plants on Wednesday.

 Yeakub Elahi Chowdhury, executive director of the Power Grid Company of Bangladesh, is heading the inquiry.

“Something happened in every power plant yesterday [Tuesday]. We will collect and review information from the plants,” he said during a visit to Ashuganj Power Plant.

Yeakub had also headed an investigation into a grid failure that occurred for around an hour on Sept 7. 

The PGCB spokesman ABM Badruddoza Khan said the company took preventive measures in the area, where the glitch caused the grid failure on Sept 7, following the previous committee’s recommendations.

 On Tuesday, a massive power outage hit Dhaka, Mymensingh, Chattogram and Sylhet divisions around 2pm after a transmission line tripped in the eastern zone of the national grid. Power started to come back in some areas around 6pm but it took until 10pm for the situation to normalise. 

People residing in homes, working in offices, factories, shops and patients taking treatment at hospitals suffered immensely due to the blackout.