Pakistan, which is already grappling with a food crisis, suffered a power outage on Monday after a fault in the national power grid. Major cities like Karachi, Islamabad, Lahore and Peshawar faced blackouts. On Monday, Pakistan’s Ministry of Energy wrote on Twitter that there was a ‘major disturbance’ in the grid at 7:34 am. As per initial reports, the system frequency of the National Grid went down at 7:34 am today, causing a widespread power outage. System maintenance work is going on fast.
What did the Energy Minister say when the lights went off?
Energy Minister Khurram Dastgir said that this is not a major crisis. He said that some grids have already been restored in the country. At around 9:22 am local time, the Ministry of Energy informed on Twitter that the restoration of grid stations from Warsak in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in northwest Pakistan has begun. It was also said that some grids have been restored in Islamabad and Peshawar as well. Dastgir assured that power would be restored across the country in the next 12 hours. According to the report of Pakistani newspaper Dawn, electricity will be completely restored in the whole of Pakistan by 10 pm local time on Monday.
‘Country heading towards serious crisis’
The Pakistani opposition used this blackout to attack the government. PTI leader Shireen Mazari said a ‘gang of miscreants’ is bringing the country down. Journalist Haris Tohid said the power outages have sparked fears that ‘the country with a fragile economy is headed for a severe energy crisis in a harsh winter.’ The Government of Pakistan has already issued an order to close the markets at 8 pm to save electricity. The country’s traffic, businesses and hospitals were among the worst affected by the power outage on Monday.
operation theater closed due to power crisis
There was silence in many factories of Pakistan on Monday. While a hospital in Islamabad had to shut down its operation theatre, a hospital in Karachi was working on backup. In Lahore, the Orange Line Metro came to a standstill and passengers got down and came on the track. In October last year too, the National Grid reported two glitches which took more than 12 hours to restore. The country is facing many difficulties amid dwindling foreign exchange reserves and huge debt. Long-standing political instability is at its core, and catastrophic disasters such as last year’s floods have deepened the crisis.
