LAHORE:Heavy to moderate rain hit City on Sunday while Met office predicted similar weather conditions for the next 24 hours.
Power supply remained suspended to scores of feeders even after 12-15 hours after rain. The rain started in early morning and continued till afternoon and inundated majority of the city’s main roads slowing down the traffic and causing inconvenience for the citizens.
Data issued by Wasa showed that 74mm rain was recorded in Samanabad, Gulshan Ravi 73mm, Iqbal Town 72mm, Paniwala Talab 71mm, Qurtaba Chowk 68mm, Lakshami Chowk 65mm, Jail Road 58.2mm, Gulberg 40mm, Upper Mall 38mm, Chowk Nakhuda 37mm, Tajpura 30mm, Mughalpura 27mm, Johar Town 22mm, Nishter Town 19mm and Airport 18.4mm.
Wasa Managing Director Ghafran Ahmed also came in the field and monitored the clearance of rainwate. Wasa MD visited various spots and issued necessary directions to the field staff. He also visited all the disposal stations of Wasa and also directed the field staff to keep the heavy machinery, pumps and generators at standby.
Ghafran Ahmed also visited Wasa’s Monsoon Control Room and monitored the clearance of all the ponding points in the city. He said most of the areas including Gaddafi Stadium, One Maurya Bridge, Shah Jamal, Lakshmi Chowk, GPO, Karim Park, Tajpura, Rasool Park, Tikka Chowk, Allah Hu Chowk, Lyton Road, Chaubarji Chowk, Empress Road, Cooper Road, Nabha Road, Railway station, Bhati Gate, Qurtaba Chowk, Waris Road, Sabzi Mandi Allama Iqbal Town were cleared till evening.
However, Ghafran Ahmed has given special instructions to all directors to survey all central, secondary and tertiary roads as well and clear them too. Met officials said moderate monsoon currents were penetrating from Bay of Bengal in upper/eastern parts and likely to spread in central and southern parts from today (Monday).
Sunday maximum temperature was recorded at Nokkundi and Dalbandin where mercury reached 47°C while in Lahore it was 35.0°C and minimum was 27.4°C. Since early morning on Sunday, power supply stopped to over 150 feeders of Lesco. Many of the affected feeders are still without electricity.
According to the spokesman for power utility, during the last 12 hours or since 2:30 AM, out of 2,169 feeders of Lesco, only 113 feeders were affected due to technical failure. He claimed that power was restored to 94 feeders, while power is still off to 19 feeders.
For the convenience of its customers, Lesco is releasing feeders related data every three hours on electronic and print media besides updating its official social media accounts, he claimed.
Power supply to most of broken down feeders were restored within 20 minutes to six hours. Lesco has transformers and related equipment available on priority basis to restore power supply in the shortest possible time in case of any emergency, he insisted. Special instructions have been given to the Complaint Centre that no customer should be left unattended. The Chief Engineer Operations is in touch with all his staff for maintenance of supply at all times. Emergency vehicles have been specially arranged and necessary instructions have been issued. At present, loadshedding is not being done anywhere except high-loss feeds. Load shedding of three hours is being done on 136 feeders of category 3. Four-hour outage is being done on 68 feeders of category four. Five-hour outage is being done on 42 feeders of category five, he added.
Meanwhile, a two-year-old child was killed and a six-year-old boy was injured when the roof of a dilapidated house collapsed in Badhana village, Burki during the rain. Rescue 1122 was informed about a family trapped under the debris after the roof collapse. Rescuers rushed to the scene and recovered the body of the two-year-old, Khafiza, and a survivor named Samiullah. The injured six-year-old boy was taken to hospital.