Bangladesh Opens Two Inquiries Into Grid Failure as Power Cuts Continue After Restoration

Grid restored in 107 minutes, but electricity shortages persisted

Bangladesh's electricity generation fell by 5,370 megawatts after a grid disruption at 12:43pm on Tuesday, October 27, 2026, interrupting supplies across eastern Dhaka, parts of Chattogram and other areas. Power Grid Bangladesh PLC said all transmission lines and grid substations were back in service by 2:30pm, but repeated power cuts continued while generating plants restarted.

Two investigations were announced: an internal Power Grid inquiry with five working days to report, and a Power Division committee with a deadline of two weeks. Both were assigned to identify the cause and recommend steps to prevent another failure.

The disruption was linked to a fault around the Meghnaghat-Haripur transmission corridor. Power Grid manager ABM Badruddoza Khan said some feeder lines around that corridor were disconnected as a precaution against a wider disruption. The Power Division initially described the problem as a mechanical fault, while a senior division official said the exact cause was still being investigated.

Power Grid's generation figures showed output dropping from approximately 14,719 MW at noon to 9,349 MW around 1pm. That was a reduction of roughly 36.5 percent, or more than one third of the electricity being generated before the incident.

Consumers continued to face shortages after the transmission network returned to service. At 3pm, half an hour after the announced grid restoration, load shedding reached 3,488 MW, the highest level recorded that week. Load shedding means deliberately cutting electricity to some customers because the supply available cannot meet demand.

Which places lost electricity?

Bhulta, Haripur, Siddhirganj, Gulshan, Rampura, Ulon and Motijheel were among the areas affected by the initial interruption. Power cuts also reached parts of Chattogram, with the Power Division describing the event as a partial grid failure in the country's southeast.

Important government and judicial premises lost electricity, including the Secretariat, the High Court, the Supreme Court and Bidyut Bhaban. The disruption therefore reached both residential neighbourhoods and buildings used for public administration and the courts.

Residents later described repeated interruptions in Moghbazar, Malibagh, Panthapath, Shantinagar and Green Road. Those accounts extended the picture beyond the initial outage: some customers regained electricity and then lost it again as the system struggled with reduced generation.

The Power Division and Power Grid apologised for the inconvenience. Their restoration announcements focused on bringing the transmission network back into operation, while generating plants were being returned to service in stages.

How the disruption unfolded

The first hour brought a sharp fall in generation. During the afternoon, the transmission network recovered, but the amount of electricity available remained too low to serve everyone continuously.

• Noon, October 27: Power Grid figures put electricity generation at approximately 14,719 MW.
• 12:43pm: The grid disruption interrupted supplies across eastern Dhaka, parts of Chattogram and other areas.
• Around 1pm: Generation had fallen to 9,349 MW.
• 2pm: Load shedding stood at 3,154 MW.
• 2:30pm: Power Grid announced that grid restoration was complete and all transmission lines and substations were operating.
• 3pm: Load shedding reached 3,488 MW, the week's highest level.
• 4pm: Load shedding declined to 2,356 MW as the recovery continued.

The interval between the initial disruption and completion of grid restoration was one hour and 47 minutes. For households, however, the practical recovery depended on generating plants returning as well as transmission equipment being available.

Between 3pm and 4pm, load shedding fell by 1,132 MW, about 32 percent. Even after that improvement, the system was still withholding 2,356 MW of supply from consumers.

Why restoring the grid did not end the cuts

Power Grid said power plants were being restarted in phases after the lines and substations returned to service. It expected local load shedding to decrease as more generating units resumed operation and electricity output rose.

A transmission grid moves electricity from power plants to the places where it is needed. Substations connect parts of that network and change voltage so electricity can travel onward. Restoring those routes allows electricity to move again; generators must also be operating to supply it.

A Bangladesh Power Development Board official said some plants had shut down completely while others had stopped only part of their operation. Plants at Bibiyana, Summit plants and two plants belonging to the board were among those affected. Restarting the closed units required time.

Distribution companies said they were using load shedding to manage the shortage. For a household, that meant a working connection could still lose supply temporarily because the electricity available across the system was insufficient.

The afternoon figures show why the effects lasted beyond the initial technical recovery. The network was declared restored at 2:30pm, yet the shortage measured at 3pm was greater than at 2pm. Transmission restoration and the recovery of generation were proceeding at different speeds.

Gas generation suffered the biggest fall

Plants fuelled by gas experienced the largest reduction among the generation categories detailed in Power Grid's figures. Their output fell from 4,382 MW at noon to 1,734 MW at 1pm, a decline of approximately 60 percent.

Coal generation dropped from 4,863 MW to 2,947 MW over the same period, down about 39 percent. Output from plants fuelled by oil fell from 2,746 MW to 2,174 MW, a reduction of roughly 21 percent.

The loss from gas generation alone was 2,648 MW. That accounted for almost half of the recorded national decline of 5,370 MW, making the recovery of gas plants especially important to restoring supply.

Electricity supplied by India's Adani plant moved in the opposite direction, increasing from 909 MW to 917 MW. Another import category remained unchanged at 941 MW. The additional 8 MW from Adani was small beside the thousands of megawatts lost from domestic generation.

Megawatts measure the rate at which electricity is being produced or supplied at a particular moment. These readings show how sharply the system's available output changed during the disruption, rather than the total electricity consumed throughout the day.

Power Grid's inquiry has five working days

Power Grid formed a committee of five members led by Syed Ebadullah Haider Ali, its chief engineer with additional responsibility for Transmission-2. The committee was instructed to submit its findings, observations and recommendations within five working days.

The utility assigned the committee to establish the actual cause of the sudden failure and recommend measures to prevent a repeat. Its task therefore covers both the incident itself and changes needed in grid operations or protection.

Khan's account of precautionary disconnections around Meghnaghat-Haripur provides an important part of the sequence investigators will examine. Some connections were deliberately cut to contain the disruption after trouble emerged around that transmission route.

The internal investigation will need to explain the connection between the original fault, those protective actions and the shutdown of generating units. Power Grid and the Bangladesh Power Development Board were working to identify the cause as the restoration proceeded.

A second committee brings a wider membership

The Power Division also formed a committee of five members, chaired by Additional Secretary K M Ali Reza. Its office order gave the panel two weeks to investigate the partial grid failure in the southeast and submit recommendations.

The members include Md Amir Khasru, a former Power Grid executive director responsible for planning and development, and Md Atiqur Rahman, a supervising engineer in the Bangladesh Power Development Board's System Protection and Testing Commissioning division.

A representative from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, known as BUET, is also included. Power Grid's executive director for operation and maintenance, Md Abdul Monayem Chowdhury, serves as member secretary.

The Power Division committee may bring in additional members if it considers their expertise necessary. Its stated responsibilities include identifying the cause, proposing specific preventive measures and advising on grid protection.

The two panels have different chairs, deadlines and institutional responsibilities. Power Grid's committee is an inquiry within the utility, while the Power Division panel brings together government, utility, generation and university representatives. Both mandates put prevention alongside the search for a cause.

Residents faced repeated interruptions into the evening

Shantinagar resident Nasima Akter described electricity returning briefly and then failing again after the afternoon disruption. Her account showed how the continuing shortage affected customers even after the main network had been restored.

Akter said:

The power has been going off repeatedly since the afternoon. It comes back after a while, then goes off again. This way, we are without electricity for about an hour.

Nazmul Haque, a resident of Kathalbagan, also described several power cuts after the evening began. Residents in other parts of the capital reported similar interruptions as distribution companies managed the shortage.

Their experiences matched the operating situation described by the utilities: transmission lines were available, but generating plants were still returning. For consumers, the most useful measure of recovery was whether electricity stayed on consistently, rather than whether the main grid equipment had been switched back into service.

Earlier failures give the inquiries a concrete task

Bangladesh experienced a major grid failure on October 4, 2022, when the eastern grid collapsed. Large parts of Dhaka, Chattogram, Sylhet and Mymensingh lost electricity for several hours. The investigation that followed led to disciplinary measures against officials responsible for grid operations.

A nationwide failure on November 1, 2014, left Bangladesh without power for nearly 12 hours. The October 27 incident affected part of the country, with transmission restoration completed in 107 minutes, although shortages continued afterward.

The latest inquiries have been asked to produce specific preventive recommendations. The day's figures make the operational challenge concrete: a fault around a transmission corridor was followed by a fall of more than one third in national generation, and restarting the network took less time than rebuilding the electricity supply available to consumers.

The next scheduled steps are the submission of Power Grid's report within five working days and the Power Division committee's report within two weeks. Their findings are expected to explain the technical sequence and identify measures for stronger grid protection.

Key Points

• The disruption began at 12:43pm on October 27, 2026, affecting eastern Dhaka, parts of Chattogram and other areas.
• Power Grid said transmission restoration was complete by 2:30pm, one hour and 47 minutes later.
• Generation fell from approximately 14,719 MW at noon to 9,349 MW around 1pm, a decline of about 36.5 percent.
• Load shedding reached 3,488 MW at 3pm as generating plants restarted in stages.
• Power Grid's internal committee has five working days to report; the Power Division's committee has two weeks.
• Both investigations must identify the cause and recommend ways to prevent another failure.