The government of Pakistan restored power supply at all the 1,112 electricity grids across the country, said the the country's Ministry of Energy in a tweet on Monday following a breakdown in the grid that triggered the country's major electricity outage in months. However, Pakistan’s Energy Minister, Khurram Dastgir said that there will be a shortage of electricity for the next two days, reported Pakistani newspaper, Dawn.
Approximately 6,600 megawatts of coal and 3,500MW of nuclear plants would take an estimated 48 to 72 hours to restart. "Until these plants start running, there will be limited load management, excluding industrial users," he said.
An enquiry has been launched into the outage which began at around 7 am Monday (local time) and lasted over 12 hours during the peak winter season, reported Reuters.
On Monday evening, Dastgir wrote on Twitter that restoration of power across the country had been started by the authorities.
"We have faced some hurdles but we will overcome these hurdles, and will restore the power," the minister told reporters, stated the news agency.
Power was beginning to return in parts of the capital Islamabad and the southwest province of Balochistan, said Dastgir.
Major power outage occurred in Pakistan with significant parts of Islamabad, Lahore, and Karachi left without power for hours. According to the initial reports, the system frequency of the National Grid went down at 7:34 this morning which led to a widespread breakdown in the power system.
Routine Lives Impacted
The nationwide power outage had impacted the routine lives of the people. Images showed traders and other workers from micro and small industries sitting idle as the work was halted due to power grid failure.
Many people had no running water as electricity outage meant lack of power for the motor pumps.
The outage hit Internet and mobile phone services. Several companies and hospitals said they had switched to back-up generators, but disruptions continued across the board.
Power Outage Sparks Meme Fest Online
As it usuallly happens, whenever faced with any inconvinience, netizens express it best through sharing memes online.