Over 220 million people were impacted by a severe power outage in Pakistan on Monday, including those living in the megacities of Karachi and Lahore.
Pakistan’s electrical distribution network is an intricate and sensitive web, and a failure in one area of the grid can trigger disruptions that spread throughout the entire nation.
A problem with the national grid at around 7:30am was the source of the lengthy outage, the second in the previous two years (0230GMT).
“According to initial reports, the system frequency dropped at the national grid in the morning which led to a massive breakdown,” the ministry of energy tweeted.
Power has been partially restored in several areas of the capital and the city of Peshawar in the northwest while repairs were being made.
More than 15 million people live in the port cities of Karachi and Lahore, both of which are still without electricity.
When a failure in southern Pakistan tripped the country’s transmission infrastructure in January 2021, the entire nation was plunged into darkness.
Energy shortages have plagued Pakistan for a long time due to a number of causes, including a weak economy, inadequate management, and a lack of storage facilities.
While schools utilize gas to heat their classrooms, hospitals are primarily backup by generators.
This winter’s load shedding has had an effect on local residents and enterprises, including textile manufacture, one of Pakistan’s main sectors, with some units temporarily shut down.
