Pakistan hit by major power blackout after grid failure

ISLAMABAD: The country suffered country-wide power cuts early on Monday due to a major breakdown in its national grid, the federal energy ministry said.

“According to initial information, at about 7:34 am today, the National Grid experienced a loss of frequency, that caused a major breakdown. A swift work is on to revive the system,” the ministry said in a statement.

Power was out in all major cities, including Karachi, Islamabad, Lahore and Peshawar.

The electricity distribution system in the nation is a complex — and delicate — web, and a problem in one section of the grid can lead to cascading breakdowns countrywide.

A frequency variation was reported in Sindh between the cities of Jamshoro and Dadu when systems were turned on on Monday morning, Power Minister Khurrum Dastagir told Geo News.

“There was a fluctuation in voltage and the systems were shut down one by one. This is not a major crisis,” Dastagir said.

Some grids in the country had already been restored, the minister added.

In 2021, a fault in a key power line plunged much of the country, including all major cities, plunged into darkness.

That blackout, one of the worst in Pakistan’s history, caused electricity to be cut in all of the major cities, including Islamabad, economic hub Karachi and Lahore.

— With AFP

Must Read

Society and Climate Change

Social challenges and climate change are deeply interconnected, with climate change exacerbating existing social issues and creating new ones: a. Displacement and Migration: Climate...

The nulls take over

Epaper_24-03-29 LHR

Epaper_24-03-29 KHI