Electricity restored in Sittwe and Ponnagyun wards

By Admin 08 Jun 2023

DMG Newsroom
8 June 2023, Sittwe

Electricity supply was resumed to wards in Sittwe and Ponnagyun towns on Wednesday evening, according to the Arakan State electricity supply office.

“We have resumed electricity supply to every ward in Sittwe and Ponnagyun towns. We have also resumed electricity supply to factories and workshops in those towns. We are also working to resume electricity supply in other neighbourhoods,” said an official from the Arakan State electricity supply office.

Electricity is supplied from a power station in Ponnagyun town to wards in Sittwe and Ponnagyun. But both towns are still experiencing rotating outages, as was the case before the storm.

Though all the wards in Ponnagyun reportedly have electricity now, some wards in Sittwe still do not have electricity, according to residents.

“Our ward still does not get electricity. I also heard neighbouring wards like Ywargyi Taung and Setyoekya still do not get electricity. We don’t know why. Perhaps they have not yet finished fixing electricity poles,” said Ko Kyaw Lin, a resident of Ywargyi Myauk ward in Sittwe.

Many electricity poles and power lines were damaged by Cyclone Mocha in Sittwe, Ponnagyun, Kyauktaw, Mrauk-U, Minbya, Myebon, Pauktaw, Rathedaung, Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships, seriously disrupting the electricity supply across much of Arakan State.

The Arakan State electricity supply office is working to resume electricity supply to other storm-hit townships, said the official.

“It won’t take long. We are trying to resume electricity supply to the remaining townships in one to two months. There are two major grids, and we have finished repairing one of them,” he said.

About 1,500 electricity staff — more than 1,000 in Arakan State and over 500 technicians from outside the state — have been working to fix the electricity supply network in Arakan State.