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City still smarting from storm

STAFF CORRESPONDENT
The city is still reeling under Tuesday's storm that damaged five Biman aircraft, uprooted hundreds of trees, snapped power and telephone lines, and sent thousands billboards dangerously flying and smashing on homes and roads.
Some areas under the Dhaka Electric Supply Company (DESCO) are yet to be reconnected to the power grid till yesterday. Many areas continued to experience low voltage and irregular power supply. The Bashundhara 132/33 KV sub-station is still inoperative.
Meanwhile, Biman flights remained disrupted and the government has clamped restrictions on river transports in the evening to
SEE PAGE 11 COL 4 FROM PAGE 1 avert disasters.
The Met Office's failure to provide proper forecast cost Biman Bangladesh Airlines dear. Five of its aircraft were damaged and engineers say that these would take about three months to repair and would cost crores of taka.
The storm packing a wind speed of 111 kilometres per hour instantly had a telling blow on the city's power system as more than 80 per cent of the city remained in darkness for the best part of Tuesday night.
The Met Office has warned that two more such storms are likely to strike the country.
According to sources at the Power Development Board (PDB) and Dhaka Electricity Supply Authority (DESA), the power system remains saturated with more demands than it could handle.
The power system is best suited for 950 MW power, but it is actually handling over 1,100 MW power. As a result, the overloaded system remains highly vulnerable to disruptions.
Power supply services under the
DESCO management zone of Gulshan-Banani also remain very weak as DESCO took over this zone only recently. The DESCO technical staff here have been hired from the Rural Electrification Board and they are not experienced to handle such large- scale problems which often emerge in DESA areas.
Sources said the DESCO could not fully restore the Gulshan-Banani power supplies till yesterday and they were, for some strange reasons, not seeking DESA's technical assistance either.
A resident of Shahdatpur, Baridhara said his area has been suffering from power outage since Tuesday's storm. As there was no power for the last two days, the residents of the area were facing acute water crisis.
PDB sources said power supply remained totally disrupted in Badda and some peripheral areas of the city under DESCO. "Had they taken DESA's help, the problems could have been resolved much earlier," commented a DESA engineer.
Uttara sectors 3, 4, 5 and 6 is experiencing irregular power supply and poor
water supply since the storm. Many telephone connections also remained snapped.
Similar situation prevails in Gandaria, Demra, Shyampur, Malibagh, Gulbagh and many other areas of the city.
Many billboards remained broken and uprooted in different parts of the city. These eyesores can be seen all along the Airport Road and Rokeya Sarani.
A resident of Panthapath said on the night of the storm, a huge signboard of a Chinese restaurant flew over to his tin-roof house and broke into it, completely damaging his television.
Trees were the worst to suffer from Monday's storm. About 100 trees were uprooted by the sides of the Airport road and in Gulshan. Some of them even blocked traffic movement for a while.
Most of the recreational spots including the Chandrima Udyan and Ramna Park lost many trees. A few trees on the road-island of Elephant road were also uprooted.