Pakistan suffered a huge power cut early on Monday following a breakdown in its national grid, leaving millions of people without electricity. Power was out in all major centres, including the biggest city, Karachi, and the capital, Islamabad, as well as Lahore and Peshawar. The outage occurred on a winter’s day where temperatures are forecast to fall to around 4 degrees Celsius (39°F) in Islamabad and 8 degrees Celsius (46°F) in Karachi.
The breakdown was caused by a fault in the national grid at about 7:30am, with Minister for Energy Khurram Dastagir claiming that the power would be restored tonight — after his statement of restoring it by 10pm. A variation in frequency on the national grid caused the cut, as power generation units were turned on early in the morning. The units had been temporarily switched off at night to save fuel, Khan earlier told the media.
In January 2021, there was a country-wide power breakdown, which had plunged the entire country into darkness. Again in October 2022, partial outages occurred which had pushed Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Quetta, Multan, and Faisalabad, and other areas into darkness. At that time the authorities concerned had attributed the breakdown to a technical fault in the system.
