Bangladesh blacked out as sub-station breaks link with India

A failure in a sub-station that connects with high tension power supply lines from India has blacked out most of Bangladesh today, bringing normal life to a standstill and leaving hospitals and other key facilities running on emergency systems.

The blackout, which began at about noon local time and affected all parts of the country linked to the national grid, was restored to parts of the capital within a few hours while engineers continued working to restore supply to the rest of Bangladesh.

The cause of the power failure was reported to be a trip command on one of the transmission lines with India. Bangladeshi officials were not sure about when power would be restored.

State minister for power, energy and mineral resources Nasrul Hamid Bipu said normal supply should be restored by the end of the day.

But Mohammad Saiful Islam, a director of state-run Bangladesh Power Development Board, said that repeated efforts to restore power had failed and he was not sure when it could be fixed.

He said that the inter-connection grid between Bangladesh and India at Bangladesh's northern Bheramara had tripped that caused power break down. Supply came down to almost 400 megawatts against the demand of more than 5000 megawatts.

Electricity supply resumed on emergency basis at Bangladesh's Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport and major hospitals, through generators.

Dhaka Medical College and Hospital, the country's largest public hospital, was also using its own generator to run services.

Bangladesh began importing electricity from India in October last year.

The high-voltage transmission line supplying power to Bangladesh runs from Baharampur in West Bengal to Bheramara in Kushtia district, in south-west Bangladesh.