Students of three residential halls of Islamic University in Kushtia suffered for nearly 30 hours without electricity over the weekend, struggling with intense heat, water shortages, and difficulties in all aspects of student life from studying to eating meals to charging electronic devices.

The affected halls are Begum Khaleda Zia Hall, Ummul Mu'minin Ayesha Siddika Hall and Shah Azizur Rahman Hall.

Electricity supply to the halls was disrupted at around 9am on Friday.  It wasn't till around 3pm on Saturday, some 30 hours later, that it came back.

Students said the prolonged outage made it difficult to sleep and study, while the disruption also affected water supply and food preparation. Those preparing for examinations faced additional difficulties.

"It is difficult to stay without electricity amid the intense heat," said Ahsan Foysal, a resident of Shah Azizur Rahman Hall.

"Students who are sitting for examinations are facing much more difficulties. It cannot be considered normal for a residential hall to remain without electricity for 30 hours," he said.

Nadia Islam, a resident of Begum Khaleda Zia Hall, said her fellow students had prepared for Thursday's scheduled power shutdown but were caught off guard by Friday's outage.

"We are facing a water problem. How are female students who are going through their periods managing in such a situation?" she said.

The university had earlier issued a notice about a scheduled power shutdown on Thursday. Although the shutdown did not take place that day, electricity supply to the three halls was disrupted from Friday morning.

IU acting chief engineer Abdul Malek said the disruption occurred due to a problem in an electricity line during renovation work at the substation.

He said the problem could not be fixed on Friday night and the university authorities tried to supply electricity through the generator line.

‘However, faults were detected at several points in the lines, including those supplying the halls,’ he said.