Power surge wrecks TVs, fridges in nearly 300 Rajshahi homes

A power surge damaged televisions, refrigerators and other electronic appliances in nearly 300 homes across three neighbourhoods in Rajshahi’s Katakhali area after electricity was restored following a transformer failure.

The incident occurred around 2:00am on Monday night in Bakhrabaj under Katakhali municipality, shortly after workers of the Northern Electricity Supply Company (Nesco) restored power using a portable transformer.

According to local residents, the transformer serving Bakhrabaj Mollapara, Bakhrabaj Madhyapara and Bakhrabaj Schoolpara had failed, leaving the three neighbourhoods without electricity. Residents later contacted Nesco’s Katakhali office after the outage persisted.

Nesco workers arrived at the site and installed a portable transformer to restore the supply. But immediately after the connection was switched on, a light bulb in a mosque near the transformer burned out. The workers quickly disconnected the supply, but by then televisions, refrigerators and other electrical appliances in many homes had already been damaged.

Angry residents subsequently detained the Nesco workers at the site. Some workers were reportedly assaulted by members of the crowd. As the situation escalated, the workers contacted police, who arrived and rescued them.

Sumon Kaderi, officer-in-charge (OC) of Katakhali police station, said, "The incident appeared to have resulted from an error by Nesco workers that caused an excessive voltage surge."

“Many household electronic devices were damaged. The residents, angered by the incident, detained the Nesco workers. Police later went there and rescued them,” he said.

Anwar Hossain, executive engineer of Nesco’s Rajshahi Sales and Distribution Division-5, said the area receives electricity through three lines and that a fault causing two lines to merge could result in an abnormally high voltage.

“That is extremely dangerous. Something like this may have happened in this case,” he said, adding that the exact location of the fault had yet to be determined.

Asked about compensation for affected residents, Hossain said it would not be possible to compensate so many households for the losses caused by the incident.