Emeute de l’électricité à Karachi – 4 août 2011

Riots break out as consumers suffer prolonged power cuts

thenews.com.pk

Friday, August 05, 2011

Karachi

The patience of power consumers in the city is wearing thin in the city, where anger at prolonged electricity outages led to riots on Thursday.

Angry residents suffering from hours-long loadshedding took to the streets and attacked KESC assets in various affected areas.

On Thursday night, a group of infuriated residents attacked a public dealing office of the power utility in Liaquatabad and also set on fire a repair vehicle of a KESC contracting firm.

Also, according to TV reports, two vehicles belonging to the KESC were set on ablaze on Thursday night as people protested against the worsening power situation on Preedy Street near Saddar. Similar power rioting was reported near the Old Numaish area where enraged consumers blocked a portion of MA Jinnah Road.

A spokesman for the KESC said that on Thursday the KESC was unable to observe the four-and-a-half-hour schedule for loadshedding due to the unavailability of two generation units of Bin Qasim Thermal Power Station and the non-supply of 80 megawatts (MW) of electricity from Kanupp.

He said two units of the Bin Qasim power plant that had tripped on Wednesday were in the testing phase and power production from them could be revived soon. Earlier, the KESC had claimed on Wednesday that two tripped units of Bin Qasim plant would be revived within 12 hours.

Later, a spokesman for the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant said that 80MW generation from Kanupp had been restored. Read more…