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Bangladesh’s national power grid failed on Tuesday, sending much of the country into power outages, officials said.
In the capital Dhaka, market vendors light candles and diners in restaurants eat food prepared by candlelight.
Officials at the state-run Bangladesh Electricity Development Board said power transmission in the eastern part of the country had failed.
All power plants in Dhaka and other big cities were tripped and power was interrupted, said Shamim Hassan, a spokesman for the power department.
Engineers are trying to determine where and why the failure occurred, and it could take hours to restore the system, he said.
Bangladesh’s recent impressive economic growth has been threatened by power shortages as the government suspended all diesel power plants to cut import costs as prices soared.
Diesel power plants generate about 6 percent of Bangladesh’s electricity, so their shutdown has reduced generation by 1,500 megawatts.
Earlier this month, the president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, Farooq Hassan, said the situation is so serious that garment factories are now without power for about 4 to 10 hours a day.
Bangladesh is the world’s second largest clothing exporter after China, and more than 80% of its annual foreign exchange income comes from the export of clothing products.
Last month, the Asian Development Bank said in a report that Bangladesh’s economic growth will slow to 6.6 percent this fiscal year from a previously forecast 7.1 percent.
It cited weak consumer spending due to sluggish export demand, domestic manufacturing constraints and other factors as reasons for the slowdown.
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