Hundreds of millions of people were left without electricity in Pakistan as a major blackout struck the entire region.
Until electricity was restored on Sunday, the power cuts continued for 18 hours as cities like the capital Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore went dark.
A complicated distribution system means that a problem can lead to breakdowns throughout the country in one part of the grid.
Torches, cell phones, back-up lights, and power generators have forced people to rely on them.
An Asian commentator and expert, Michael Kugelman, wrote online:’ Wide parts of Pakistan have been plunged into darkness.
‘It’s not the first time this has happened; the country’s power infrastructure is fragile.
‘In the past, separatist attacks have been blamed for such outages. That doesn’t appear to be the case this time’.
Power Minister Omar Ayub Khan said that beginning with Islamabad, power was being restored in stages. He said later on Sunday that power had been restored to much of the country.
Residents of major urban centers, including Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, and Multan, initially announced the blackout on social media. To update the country, the minister and his spokesman then went to Twitter.
The Ministry of Energy said that power had been restored in some parts of the country and that in the early hours of Sunday, teams were still working to fully restore supply.
Netblocks, which tracks internet outages, said that as a result of the outage, internet access collapsed in the region.
In a tweet, connectivity was at ’62 percent of usual levels,’ it said.
Source: Daily Mail
