Widespread power cuts, coupled with incessant network problems faced by BSNL mobile phone connections, had city residents flush with fury on Tuesday, when heavy rain lashed most parts of the city.
Beginning at around 3 p.m., the showers soon developed into a heavy downpour, and continued for more than two hours, resulting in a spate of outages across the city.
Unscheduled power cuts were reported from many areas of the Old City, and localities such as Mehdipatnam, Banjara Hills, Imliban, and Kothapet among others.
With the APCPDCL’s 155333 emergency call centre remaining inaccessible, and the mobile phones of officials concerned not working, there was great confusion among power consumers.
“I called at least 17 times from my landline, and 15 times from the mobile, to the CPDCL’s emergency call centre, but to of no avail. Instead of the scheduled outage at 4.30 p.m., power went off at 3 p.m. and was restored half-an-hour later. Then again, there was an outage at 5.20 p.m., and since then, nobody took my calls,” complained Rasheed Ansari, a freelance writer from Mehdipatnam.
Consumers from the Old City too complained of longer-than-scheduled power cuts even before the rains came down.
Winds play games
CPDCL Chief General Manager (Metro Zone) A.G. Satish Kumar said the power cuts were due to feeder trips caused by winds that preceded the rain. About sixty 11KV feeders tripped in all the three circles of the Metro Zone area due to the downpour. While most of them were rectified within 20 minutes to half-an-hour, consumers in the purview of about 20 feeders had to endure longer outages, the CGM said.
He attributed the morning power cuts in the Old City due to a 33KV feeder trip in the Chandrayangutta EHT substation. However, the loads were immediately shifted to other lines, he said.
Temperatures dip
The showers, however, brought the much-needed relief to the city’s denizens from the heat.
The city recorded a maximum temperature of 36.2 degrees Celsius and minimum of 25.2 degrees Celsius on Tuesday as against temperatures of 38.4 degree Celsius and 27.4 degree Celsius on Monday. Rainfall till 5.30 p.m. measured 18.6 mm rain, MeT officials said, adding that similar weather conditions would prevail on Wednesday as well.
