Rural residents across several parts of the border district faced renewed hardship after a powerful squall struck the region early this morning, once again damaging electricity transmission infrastructure and plunging many villages into darkness.
The strong winds, which swept through the area around 1 am, uprooted trees and electricity poles, causing extensive damage to transmission lines. The latest disruption came barely hours after PSPCL employees had restored electricity in many affected villages following a 24-hour outage caused by an earlier storm on Friday night.
Power supply had been resumed in several areas late Friday evening after round-the-clock efforts by electricity department staff, who were assisted by local residents, who needed electricity for their homes and tubewells. However, the relief proved short-lived as the fresh squall undid much of the repair work, forcing authorities to shut down power supply in several locations for safety reasons.
Residents reported severe inconvenience due to the prolonged outages. With power shutdown, residents, especially those running dairies, had a tough time arranging water for animals.
Farmers also expressed concern over interruptions in irrigation activities as paddy transplantation has already begun. “We had just started getting back to normal after nearly a day without electricity. Then the storm struck again and everything went dark,” said Gurmeet Singh, a resident of Attari.
Another villager, Harjit Kaur, said, “The repeated outages have made life very difficult. Children and elderly people are suffering due to the heat and we are also facing problems in getting water. We are unable to use electronic appliances. Moreover refrigerators are off and preserving milk has become a daunting task.”
