Power Outage Hits Kabul After Militants Attack Pylon

Kabul, Afghanistan, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 15th Apr, 2018 ) :A massive power outage in Kabul has left many residents of the Afghan capital with no lights or running water, officials said Sunday, after militants blew up an electricity pylon in the restive north.

A pre-dawn attack Saturday on a transmission tower in Baghlan province left Kabul with 95 megawatts, less than a quarter of its normal power supply, said Wahid Tawhidi, a spokesman for power utility Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat (DABS).

Efforts to repair the pylon had so far failed as heavy fighting prevented a local DABS crew from reaching the site, Tawhidi told AFP.

"Today when our team tried to go to the area, rockets were fired at their vehicles and they had to turn back," he said.

The provincial governor's spokesman Mahmood Haqmal said Taliban fighters had used a mine to "bring down" the power line. "They have escaped the area but some of them are still in the mountains, preventing engineers from fixing the pylon," Haqmal told AFP.