Pakistan hit by major power outage for second time in three months

Pakistan on Monday suffered a major power outage due to a breakdown in its national grid, Dawn reported.

The Ministry of Energy said that the national grid went down at 7.34 am local time (8.04 am Indian Standard Time), resulting in a widespread breakdown in the system.

Energy Minister Khurram Dastagir said electricity across the country is likely to be restored by 10 pm local time. He added that power has partially been restored in Islamabad, Peshawar, Quetta, Multan and Sukkur.

Dastagir told Geo News that the power generation units are temporarily shut down in winter at night to save fuel costs.

“When the systems were turned on at 7.30 am this morning one by one, frequency variation was reported in the southern part of the country between Jamshoro and Dadu,” he said. “There was a fluctuation in voltage and power generating units were shut down one by one due to cascading impact. This is not a major crisis.”

This is the second major power outage in the country since October, according to Reuters.

On January 3, the country had announced a series of measures, including closing all malls and markets by 8.30 pm, in an attempt to conserve energy amid an economic crisis.

The measures were taken as the International Monetary Fund delayed the payment of $1.1 billion (Rs 9,111 crore) of funding that was due in November. The country is also facing a delay in getting international financing of more than $30 billion (Rs 2.4 lakh crore) which includes debt repayments and energy imports.

The economic crisis comes months after Pakistan faced a devastating flood that displaced nearly 3.3 crore people of its 23 population.