Labourers remove debris near a car that was damaged after a portion of a wall of the daily market collapsed and fell following heavy downpour in Rourkela on Saturday. Picture by Uttam Kumar Pal

Rourkela, Sept. 6: Life was thrown out of gear due to torrential rain accompanied by lighting here yesterday. The downpour started around 5.30pm and continued till 11pm.

The rain snapped power supply and plunged the city into darkness.

Though power supply was restored in most of the areas by the evening, many areas under the Chhend grid continued to remain in the dark. An insulation top on the 33KV tower near the water intake well at Sector-20 got destroyed in the lightning. Following this, the entire Koelnagar, part of Jhirpani, Jagda, Madhusudanpalli and some other areas had to endure a prolonged power cut.

Officials of the Western Electricity Supply Company of Odisha (Wesco) could not trace the fault as it was raining intermittently. Around 12 at night, the only phase that was supplying power to these localities also tripped, making things worse. However, power situation was not good even in the rest of the city with the supply getting interrupted from time to time.

“Last evening, power supply was erratic,” said Chhend resident Sanjukta Samantray.

Ranjan Kumar Nayak, executive engineer of Wesco, said: “The fault was at the 33KV tower at the water intake well near Sector-20. The insulation got burst in the lightning, creating a dangerous situation. As a result, only one phase was receiving power while the other remained dark. This morning, it was our priority to restore the power supply and it was done at the earliest.”

“The lightning was scary. In my lifetime, I have hardly ever seen such rain and lightning,” said P.N. Das, an octogenarian at Koelnagar.

With several areas getting waterlogged, residents had to wade through knee-deep water to reach their workplaces or the local market. Condition in the low-lying areas was particularly bad.