BHUBANESWAR: Large parts of the city plunged into darkness on Monday evening due to power outage following lightning and rain. Heavy rain lashed the city for nearly three hours, throwing normal life out of gear, while power failure compounded the woes of the citizens.
The Central Electricity Supply Utility (CESU) had to shut down power supply to the city, leaving some vital installations like Capital Hospital and State Secretariat, to save the equipment and machinery from getting damaged in lightning, said a senior officer of the utility.
Major areas of the city including Kharavel Nagar, Unit-6 and Ganga Nagar, Nayapalli, Rental Colony, VIP Colony, Baramunda, IRC Villlage, Jaydev Vihar, Xavier Institute, Infocity, Bargarh, Cuttack Road, Laxmisagar and Mancheswar were under darkness for more than two hours.
Power supply to these areas was snapped due to puncture in insulators in the low transmission lines after lightning struck at many points of the city. It took time to locate the punctured insulators and replace them, said a senior officer of Bhubaneswar City Distribution Division (BCCD).
Around 500 families of Atala near Hanspal were affected after a feeder line snapped near the Metro building. Power supply to the area was affected as a tree fell on the feeder line, BED Executive Engineer Manoj Das said. Similarly, about 500 families of Bargarh area and two locations in Uttara outside the city limits were affected after the feeder lines snapped.
Struck by lightning, the 220/132/33 KV sub-station at Chandaka, the lifeline of city power supply system, tripped. However, normalcy was restored immediately by OPTCL staff.
Several low lying areas in the city were still under darkness till the report was filed as transformers controlling power supply to those areas were under pools of water making restoration works difficult, CESU officials said.