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28 March 2024

Power cuts hit shopping malls, businesses

A grocery shop owner waits for the power supply to be restored. (ASHOK VERMA)

Published
By Eman Al Baik

With Sharjah residents making a beeline for the city's malls to escape dark and hot homes, security and technical staff have been put on alert by mall managements to handle the rush and any power cuts that may occur.

As some parts of Sharjah faced a black out for the second day yesterday, the management of Sharjah City Centre asked its technicians to be ready to operate generators to tackle the outages.

Antony Jude, Senior Supervisor of Facility Management at Sharjah City Centre, told Emirates Business that the mall has not received any notification from the Sharjah Electricity and Water Authority (Sewa) about a power cut. "However, there were rumours that Sewa is carrying out maintenance work,"?he said.

"If we know the power cut schedule, we can organise our operations and technical team. Now we are constantly on alert and in a status of wait and watch," he said, adding that the centre has adequate generators for all its power requirements in case of an outage.

The mall faced a huge increase in visitors Tuesday and yesterday, as its surrounding areas – Al Khan, Al Nahda, the industrial areas, and Al Majaz – had intermittent power cuts. However, Jude said, nobody stayed overnight, as the mall closes at midnight.

The Sharjah?City?Centre faced a three-minute partial electricity cut off. "It seems that Sewa changed the supplying line during this outage. I expect a similar short power disconnection in the coming few days when swapping the switches," he said.

Jude was also personally affected on Tuesday, returning home after work at 9pm, he found elevators in his apartment building, where he lives on the 32nd floor, were not working. He and his family were forced to spend the night outside, at the mall and in his car.

Gordhn Lal, from Al Safeer Mall in the Al Khan area, said that the mall yesterday threw away food estimated worth Dh10,000, including milk, yogurt, cheese, chicken, meat and vegetables, because of an overnight power outage. "We had to remove all these food items from the fridges. With prior notification, we would not have suffered this loss. And the problem continues – no one is answering our calls to Sewa's emergency number."

The newspaper tried to contact Sewa officials, but all calls on their landline and mobile phones went unanswered.

Readers write in

PLENTY OF SOURCES

 

In the Middle East, you have an unlimited source of energy to generate electricity. No reason for outages.

Peter Lee

There's a reason rents in Sharjah are cheaper than the other emirates – you need to put up with a few inconveniences (Power outages return to Sharjah, May 26). If you're willing to drive there and back from Dubai or Abu Dhabi, what is a little power outage?

Metroboy