KARA CHI - Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC), in its clarification before a team of NEPRA officials investigating the massive power breakdown in the metropolis on June 17, stated that a fault at the national grid had resulted in prolonged electricity outage. It is worth mentioning here that on 17th June, Karachi was plunged into complete darkness due to power failure. Complete blackout prevailed at all important public places, including Quaid-e-Azam International Airport and it took more than 20 hours to restore power supply to the city. The KESC has presented detailed explanation of the incident to a visiting team of the Nepra, said Jan Abbas Zaidi, Chief Operating Officer (Distribution) during a news briefing here on Tuesday. Ayesha Eirabie, Director Corporate Communications was also present on the occasion. Zaidi said that KESC had already made public the actual facts and reasons behind the blackout. It started with disruption of a 500 KVA line of the National Integrated System due to a thunderstorm at Jamshoro. The cascading effects of the interruption had tripped all the KESC power plants and the City was plunged into darkness. He remarked that KESC engineers had to work hard to restore power supply. On the one hand, the power plants had been energised and on the other, work was being carried out to revive national connection. After three unsuccessful attempts to establish a link to the National Grid, an unprecedented decision was taken, to isolate the Citys power supply from the national network, which proved to be successful, he argued. Replying to a query, Zaidi said the KESC management had been following a policy of total transparency. Every detail about transmission, distribution and generation, previously kept secret or confidential, is being made accessible to the general public. He further said that on Tuesday, the total demand of the City was 2303 MW while the supply had been 2260 MW. The deficit of 43 MW was due to the low gas pressure otherwise the KESC could have supplied electricity as per the total demand. Zaidi also explained that loadshedding and local cable faults were two different matters, which needed to be understood. The company has not been observing any loadshedding while in cases of cable faults, the supply could be restored only after repair work had been carried out and it could not be switched on from the grids. Therefore, while complaining of interruption, the consumers needed to report the correct situation, he concluded.