Special Teams in Storm-Hit Khuzestan to Fix Power Grids

The Energy Ministry is dispatching dozens of maintenance crews to Khuzestan Province to repair and rebuild electrical infrastructure that was battered by severe dust storms in the past few weeks, a deputy energy minister said.

"Twenty groups were sent to Ahvaz on Saturday to accelerate the cleanup of substations and power transmission equipment and 30 more are on their way to the southern province," Houshang Falahatian was quoted as saying by IRNA on Sunday.

A total of 120 electrical crews are working round the clock to restore affected regions back to the grid. A total of 225 kilometers of transmission lines across Khuzestan were rechecked at the weekend, he added.

However, Falahatian suggested that full restoration of the electricity network in the oil province could take another three weeks.

Dust storms have  become a near permanent feature of the southern regions during the past several years. In recent weeks, the severity and intensity of the phenomenon were reminiscent of dust storms in February 2015, when massive storms hit Khuzestan, locking people indoors and shutting schools, colleges and offices. 

But things got worse this time around as storms knocked out the electricity grid in at least 13 cities in Khuzestan, although power reportedly has been restored in most regions.

Falahatian said last week that the ministry had allocated 1 trillion rials (around $25 million) to restore power in Khuzestan. 

Besides the extensive outages, residents have also suffered intermittent water supply cuts and poor mobile connectivity while landlines in some regions are still down.

According to experts, most of the sources of dust storms, which have worsened in recent years, are in neighboring Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Syria.