6,500 mobile towers offline after storm

Over 6,500 mobile network towers went offline across Bangladesh after yesterday's nor'wester that wreaked havoc in Dhaka, insiders say.

Banglalink's 1,500 sites are currently out of service, Taimur Rahman, chief corporate affairs officer of the operator, told The Daily Star today.

"Out of our 9,000 mobile network sites, around 1,500 are out of service for power cut," he said. "3,000 other sites are running on on-site generators."

Nearly 50 per cent of all network sites of all mobile operators do not have commercial power as of 11:00am this morning, according to what could be known.

At least 5,000 towers of market's leading operator Grameenphone and Robi were reported to be off line due to the same cause, sources have said.

Six people were killed and 18 others injured in the capital, as the nor'wester lashed Dhaka and some other districts across the country yesterday evening.