Daily Times

LAHORE: An overnight storm in the wee hours of Wednesday broke the distressing heatwave, although suffering continued as the provincial capital plunged into darkness with disruption in the supply of electricity.

Howling winds recorded at up to 67km per hour, and then rain caused at least 25 electricity feeders to trip in the provincial capital.

The wind eventually died down, but so did the electricity in various areas of Lahore; including Defence Housing Authority (DHA), Garden Town, Iqbal Town, Model Town, Muslim Town, Shalimar Town, Shadman, Gulshan Ravi, Batapur, Harbanspura, Samanabad and Misri Shah.

According to the Lahore Electric Supply Company (LESCO) spokesman, 22 feeders have been restored, while the remaining will be restored soon as well.

Meanwhile, rain and storm also suspended flight operations at the Allama Iqbal International Airport until 7am.

According to airport officials, 11 Lahore-bound flights were cancelled due to bad weather.

Lahore-bound PIA flight PK-264 from Abu Dhabi was rerouted due to the weather and directed to land in Multan.

Later, flight operations resumed as the weather improved.

Separately, a spokesperson for the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) Wednesday said that power supply would remain suspended in different areas adjacent to the route of the Orange Line Metro Train due to shifting of high tension electricity wires

Those areas where electricity supply will remain suspended include Gulbahar Town, Haji Park and Malik Steel, Shah Fareed, Jafferia Colony, Al-Mumtaz, Nawan Kot, Chauburji Park, Sodiwal, Bastami Road, Said Pur, Studio, Nonarian, Rustam Park, Jinnah Colony, Multan Road, Punch Road, Union Park, Zubair Road, Raj Ghar and Nargis Block.

Meanwhile, Khawaja Hassan Ahmad, chairman of the steering committee for the project, has said that the power supply will be suspended under unavoidable circumstances during the holy month of Ramazan.

He underlined the need for adopting safety measures during execution of work on the project and said that areas where work was in progress should be barricaded to avoid collision of vehicles. “Banks men should be deployed to facilitate the reversing of vehicles and reflecting signage should be pasted on the sites. Fire extinguishers and other fire-fighting equipment should be in place and the staff must be trained to operate the fire-fighting equipment. Flammable material should be handled carefully and stored in designated places separately from ignition sources.”

He also called upon all the relevant departments as well as contractors for getting their staff trained by the Punjab Emergency Service (Rescue 1122) for adopting safety measure in case of any untoward incident.