Long queues at refuelling stations

Rahim Sheikh, who works as a caretaker in a residential building in Gopibagh, desperately rushed to a petrol pump in Dhaka’s Motijheel for diesel, because their high-rise building’s elevator and motor pump went out of order after generators ran out of diesel.

Mizanur Rahman, the owner of a restaurant in Gopibagh, also rushed to the petrol pump for the same reason.

Not only Rahim and Mizan, but hundreds of other people also thronged different petrol pumps in the capital to collect diesel for operating generators, after an unprecedented power outage in different parts of the country including the capital.

On Tuesday, the biggest power outage in recent years was caused by a sudden failure of the national power grid. The national power transmission grid failed at 2:05 pm, causing a blackout across the country, except in some parts of the north.

At first, the city dwellers considered the sudden power outage as usual load shedding. But later they gradually understood that the problem is something else after the power outage continued hour after hour.

Meanwhile, generators of many multi-storeyed commercial and residential buildings in Dhaka are run by diesel during power shortages. But yesterday, the generators ran out of diesel within a few hours, forcing many city dwellers to rush to different filling stations for diesel.

Mohammad Abdullah, an employee at a petrol pump in the Nilkhet area, said that the demand for diesel spiked after the national power grid failure and they were struggling to deliver diesel to the customers.

Mofizur Rahman, the employee at a commercial building in Gulshan-1, came to Mohakhalis’ Crescent Petrol Pump with a container for diesel. He had to wait in a long queue for several hours.

He said, “Usually 100 litres of diesel are kept in reserve for the generator. Today, we ran the generator continuously for several hours from noon until the oil ran out. If there is no power for a few more hours, we will be forced to shut down the generator which will trigger a blackout in the entire building including the elevators.”

Mohakhalis’ Crescent Petrol Pump Cashier Arif Hossain said that the demand for diesel has suddenly increased after the grid failure. But there is no shortage of diesel at his pump.

He also said that the sales of diesel have doubled compared to a normal day.

People who came to buy diesel said having no electricity for hour after hour is already very troublesome, and standing in the long queue for hours is adding insult to injury.

The government should have resolved the problem quickly, they said.