Power Division apologises for outage, opens probe

The government has formed a committee to investigate what caused the vast blackout

The Power Division has apologised to tens of millions of customers who suffered hours of outages that affected nearly half of Bangladesh. 

It has also launched an investigation to find out what caused the vast blackout that started just after 2 pm on Tuesday and continued for hours into the night. 

Power supply started to normalise in some areas after 6 pm, but it took several more hours for full restoration in many areas.

Dhaka, Chattogram, Mymensingh and Sylhet under the eastern zone of the national grid were affected by the outage, while the situation was largely normal in the four other divisions

The authorities in a statement apologising to the customers at night said the work to restore power fully was still underway. 

It said it resumed power supply around half an hour after the outage started through the 230 kv Ashuganj-Sirajganj transmission line. Power generation reached 8,431 MW at 9 pm and the work to gradually increase production with caution was underway. 

The Power Division said 1,750 MW was supplied to Dhaka against the demand for 2,300 MW at 9:40 pm after it started resuming supply to the capital at 5:15 pm. 

It formed a committee of six members to investigate the incident. Yeakub Elahi Chowdhury, executive director of the Power Grid Company of Bangladesh, is heading the investigation. Two more committees will be formed to investigate the outage.