Karachi water supply takes another hit

Karachi faced fresh water supply disruptions on Sunday after a power failure at the Dhabeji pumping station shut down 10 of its 21 heavy-duty pumps, the latest in a series of outages and infrastructure failures that have disrupted the city's water supply in recent months, ANI reported on Monday, citing Dawn.

The Karachi Water and Sewerage Corporation (KWSC) said electricity to the third and fourth phases and the K-3 Pump House at Dhabeji was disrupted around 6 am following a cable fault in K-Electric's network.

The shutdown affected pumping operations and was expected to cause partial disruption to water distribution across Karachi. The KWSC said the 10 affected pumps would be brought back into operation once electricity was restored and urged residents to limit water consumption in the meantime, according to Dawn.

K-Electric said the cable fault was caused by a fire in nearby brushland. Its technical teams were at the site and coordinating with the water utility to restore power, Dawn reported.

The latest incident is part of a series of disruptions affecting Karachi's water infrastructure in recent months.

On July 27, a power failure at Dhabeji resulted in a shortfall of around 48 million gallons of water and affected several areas, including North Nazimabad, Nazimabad, Gulberg Town, New Karachi, Landhi, Korangi and Scheme 33, according to Dawn.

Earlier in July, an electrical failure at the K-2 Pump House also disrupted pumping operations and led to problems involving manifold chambers and primary valves, the newspaper reported.

The city's Hub Pumping Station faced a separate disruption on June 1 after a major cable fault. The failure cut around 85 million gallons per day from Karachi's water supply, Dawn said.

That disruption followed a power failure at the North East Karachi Pumping Station, which had resulted in a daily shortfall of around 122 million gallons.

Dhabeji itself had faced another emergency shutdown on May 30, when nearly half of its 21 pumping units were taken offline.

The repeated outages at key pumping facilities have added to pressure on Karachi's water distribution system, with disruptions at electricity-dependent pumping stations directly affecting supplies to large parts of the city.