HYDERABAD, June 14: Two brothers were killed and eight other people were injured when the roof of their house collapsed in Old Wahdat colony area when a severe duststorm lashed the city on Tuesday evening. The deceased were identified as Haris and Siraj, sons of Sohrab Khan.

The injured, Hina, Najma, Zulekha, Sat Bharai, Abdul Hameed and three children, were admitted to the Bhittai hospital.

They belonged to two families, residing in Shahbaz colony, a katchi abadi of in the Old Wahdat colony.

Almost the entire city plunged into darkness when trees and billbords uprooted by the storm damaged 11kv lines of the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company. The storm which lasted for half an hour was followed by heay rain.

Hesco officials claimed to have launched an operation to ensure restoration of power supply and indicated that it was going to take a considerable time to restore power supply.

Given the level of Hesco’s performance, people would have to live with the power breakdown for longer duration that may continue till midnight.

The rain began at 6:10pm and continued for about 30 minutes intermittently. The metrological office could not record rain at the Airport office.

An official claimed that a heavy duststorm of 55 nautical miles per hour had hit the city.

Signboards, electricity poles and live electricity wires fell on roads at a number of places including the Salahuddin road near Uqaab bakery, Fatima Jinnah road near the Shahbaz building, Latifabad-7 near Sabzazar, Sharif square Hussainabad, American quarters, and Jamshoro Bridge.

All the feeders tripped in sub-divisions of Hesco with people complaining about power breakdown to Hesco’s office.

“We have launched the operation in order to ensure power supply as soon as possible. The entire area of Gari Khata sub-division is currently without electricity”, said chief executive Gari Khata Akbar Durrani.

“The felling of trees on transformers and billboards on roads has made the task of Hesco workers difficult but we will be able to bring the situation under control very soon because patrolling has been intensified by Hesco officials”, he claimed.

In most of the localities 11kv lines were affected by the duststorm whereas grid stations also closed the feeders at such incident places as precautionary measures.