DOHA: A sudden power outage left thousands of people, including the elderly and children in a bustling town near here, braving sizzling heat and humidity for hours yesterday.
The power failure was caused around noon due to overload on transmission cables in Umm Al Amad, which is some 26 kilometres north of Doha off the arterial North Road.
Electricity was restored in the area at 1.37pm yesterday, according to utility distributor Kahramaa.
But a resident of the area said electricity was restored around 4.30 to 4.45pm.
The temperature in the area at the time was much above 35 degrees Celsius but what made people suffer more was the high humidity.
Humidity yesterday was quite high at 73 percent , while it was a record high at 83 percent on Friday night, according
to sources in the weather office.
Thousands of families live in the area (Umm Al Amad), it being quite close to Doha.
Naturally, air-conditioners were on full-blast in all homes in the area when power suddenly tripped.
People were fasting and came out after waiting for a few minutes for electricity supplies to be restored.
Later, many of them were seen rushing to their cars to start the engine and switch on the air-conditioner to escape the stifling heat.
Utility distributor Kahramaa dispatched a team of technicians to identify the problem and
fix it after its emergency control room was informed of the outage.
Some 30 engineers and technicians comprising the team rushed to the spot and according to a press statement issued by Kahramaa, electricity supplies were restored in the area at 1.37pm.
Kahramaa sources said that it has cancelled the weekly day-offs of all technicians as complaints of power failures might pour in from different areas since this is the peak summer season when the consumption of electricity is the highest due to the use of air-conditioners.
Local social networking sites were yesterday abuzz with complaints about power failures in different areas.
Some posts said there were outages in the areas for four hours, while others said they were without electricity for 10 minutes.
Kahramaa has called on consumers to call 991 in the event of problems in electricity or water supply.
The main reason for the outages is overload on transmission cables as the population has been increasing resulting in more appliances being used.
The Peninsula
