Lights are back on in Pakistan after widespread blackout

Electricity was restored today, Tuesday (24/1) in many of its cities Pakistan who yesterday came face to face with one extended blackout. The lights went out after a massive failure occurred in the country’s grid.

Power was restored to most of Karachi and Lahore overnight, but brief power outages continued locally.

In the capital Islamabad and other cities such as Peshawar, Quetta and Rawalpindi, the electricity. However, the same did not happen in the countryside.

According to the authorities, the breakdown is due to a malfunction of the system, after the sharp increase in voltage that occurred yesterday Monday at 7:30 am local time (04:30 Greek time), after the re-operation of the electricity generating units, which close during the winter at night in order to save fuel.

Due to the breakdown, there were also problems with mobile phone services, as the Pakistan Telecommunication Service wrote on Twitter.

Energy Minister Khurram Nastgir Khan said last night that the gradual restoration of electricity had begun.

Power outages are common in Pakistan which faces a chronic energy crisis exacerbated by a complex and aging distribution system.

Most hospitals, industries and government offices in the country are equipped with generators. But households and small shops often do not have the means to buy this equipment.

In northern Pakistan, as reported by the Athens News Agency, temperatures dropped below zero degrees Celsius last night. Most households use natural gas for heating, although even this is not reliable, with outages frequent due to shortages.

A similar breakdown in Pakistan’s electricity system in 2021 had plunged much of the country into darkness after a system malfunction in southern Pakistan triggered chain reactions.