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In a telling reflection of collapsing basic infrastructure in Pakistan, the commercial hub of Karachi has been plunged into a catastrophic humanitarian crisis as its already fragile water supply network suffered another crippling blow due to a major technical failure in the electricity grid, Dawn reported.
The severe breakdown saw the water supply from the Hub Pumping Station completely suspended, a disaster triggered by a technical fault in the main power cable of K-Electric (KE), the private power utility company responsible for the metropolis. This latest infrastructure failure marked the third consecutive day of systemic power collapses at pivotal water pumping stations across the city, entirely disrupting the municipal distribution network and leaving millions of residents stranded in scorching weather conditions. Exposing the sheer scale of the administrative mismanagement, the Karachi Water and Sewerage Corporation (KWSC) stated that the latest power suspension alone resulted in a massive daily water shortfall of 85 million gallons per day (MGD) for the city, according to a report by Dawn. The state public utility corporation outlined the gravity of the systemic grid collapse, maintaining that the "main cable fault at Hub Pumping Station results in shortfall of 85 MGD; KE claims power supply restored via alternative means". The ongoing utility outages come at a time when Karachi has already been grappling with a severe, unresolved water crisis that has persisted for the past two months, highlighting the state''s inability to provide basic necessities to its population. Further compounding the misery, the public faced a acute water shortage during the three days of Eidul Azha, following an earlier disruption on May 30 when KE authorities executed a forced shutdown at the Dhabeji Grid to urgently repair a major technical fault in the Power Transformer No. 1. That specific failure effectively knocked out 10 of the 21 pumping units at the critical Dhabeji Pumping Station, instantly cutting off the vital water supply to several densely populated residential areas. The crisis escalated dramatically in the early hours of Saturday when the electricity supply to the North East Karachi (NEK) Water Pumping Station failed completely at 3:27 am, once again due to a recurring fault in K-Electric''s main supply line. According to Dawn, the sudden power outage halted K-II Pumping Station operations, triggering immediate water shortages in several sectors of the city and causing an instantaneous shortfall of 54 MGD. Although the electricity grid was eventually restored to bring the K-II and K-III units back into normal operation, the day-long disruption had already inflicted an accumulated, irreversible shortfall of 122 MGD upon the city''s dried-up reserves. On Monday, the absolute failure of Pakistan''s urban governance was laid bare as the city''s water woes dragged on, with yet another cable fault at K-Electric cutting off electricity to the Hub Pumping Station. This continuous three-day string of power-related failures has drastically aggravated a two-month-long structural water scarcity, piling immense misery on citizens forced to survive under an unrelenting heatwave with dry taps. Attempting to deflect blame, a spokesperson for the power utility confirmed that the supply to the station was severely affected due to a cable fault, adding that "KE''s technical teams remain in coordination with representatives of the water board to ensure continued support and operational stability." (ANI)
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