HARIPUR (The Thursday Times) — Work on the Tarbela 5th Extension Hydropower Project was suspended on Monday after water surged into the construction site. The Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) said all workers had been moved to safety and no one was hurt.
WAPDA said a weak rock mass gave way during excavation of the second bench of the connecting tunnel, letting water from the intake pit flow into the tunnel and the area of the under-construction power house. “All workers were immediately evacuated safely,” it said.
The authority said the intake pit had since been fully drained, that no more water was reaching the downstream work areas, and that pumping out the power house had begun. Senior WAPDA officers, the project engineer and the contractor were assessing the situation.
A different account: Haripur Deputy Commissioner Waseem Ahmed, who visited the site, said a protective bund had breached and that water had entered Tunnel 5. Pakistani and foreign workers were moved to a safe place, the district administration said, and rescuers saved one worker who had been swept away. It said work had stopped indefinitely and that an inquiry would examine whether a structural weakness or technical fault was to blame.
WAPDA rejected reports that the T-5 tunnel had collapsed, saying the main tunnel, the power house, the tailrace culvert and the switchyard had not been damaged.
The project: the extension is still being built and is not yet feeding the grid. It is designed to add 1,530MW through three 510MW units, taking Tarbela’s installed capacity from 4,888MW to 6,418MW. The World Bank is providing $390 million and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank $300 million, and the main civil works contract went to Power Construction Corporation of China in 2021.
Earlier setbacks: a cofferdam at the site collapsed in August 2025. A three-member government committee later found that the contractor had proposed a rock-filled design the contract did not allow, that the consultant had conditionally accepted it, and that WAPDA had approved the change without examining its risks. Estimates reported in July put the project’s cost at Rs317 billion, up from Rs82.36 billion in 2017, and its completion at the end of June 2028.
