A major power failure at Karachi’s Dhabeji pumping station triggered a water supply disruption across several parts of the city on Sunday. The Karachi Water and Sewerage Corporation said electricity to different phases of the station went out around 6 am. K-Electric attributed the outage to a cable fault in its system.

According to a KWSC spokesperson, the breakdown hit Dhabeji’s third phase, fourth phase, and the K-III pump house. As a result, 10 of the station’s 21 pumps stopped operating. Dhabeji serves as Karachi’s main water pumping facility, and it depends heavily on a stable electricity supply. Therefore, even brief power failures can immediately disrupt water distribution across the city.

Meanwhile, the KWSC said it remained in continuous contact with K-Electric officials to restore power as quickly as possible. The corporation added that all 10 affected pumps would restart immediately once electricity returned. Additionally, officials said water supply to affected areas would normalize once power was fully restored at the pumping station.

K-Electric, however, said a fire in nearby bushes damaged the cables supplying electricity to the KWSC facility. A K-Electric spokesperson said a technical team reached the site where the cables caught fire. The power utility also said it was coordinating continuously with the water corporation to restore electricity to the affected pumping facilities at the earliest.

This disruption comes weeks after the Sindh government approved a 7.05% increase in KWSC water and sewerage charges for the 2026-27 financial year. The revised tariff took effect retrospectively from July 1, 2026. Instead of a one-off adjustment, this marks the second major increase in KWSC charges within two years. The corporation had already raised its monthly charges by around 23% in September 2024, according to The News.

The latest tariff hike comes as Karachi continues to struggle with water shortages, ageing sewerage infrastructure and deteriorating civic systems. Finally, at the time of the revision, the KWSC said the higher charges were aimed at improving service delivery and supporting the long-term financial sustainability of the city’s water and sewerage operations. Officials now face pressure to resolve the current water supply disruption quickly, given the scale of recent tariff increases.