ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani government on Sunday said it is launching an investigation into a major power breakdown that on late Saturday plunged much of the country into darkness.
The blackout was reported a little before midnight by people on social media across the country, including the capital Islamabad, economic hub Karachi and the second-largest city Lahore.
Power was gradually being restored to major cities in the early hours of Sunday.
“We will have an independent inquiry to find out the cause behind this major power breakdown,” Energy Minister Omar Ayub Khan told reporters.
The electricity distribution system in the nation of around 220 million people is a complex and delicate web, and a problem in one section of the grid can lead to cascading breakdowns countrywide.
“A technical fault tripped the transmission system of the whole country … our teams are deployed in the field to locate it,” the minister said. “We will have to physically check each electricity pylon and transmission system, therefore it may take some time.”
Pakistan has a rickety power generation and transmission system that routinely leads to surprise grid failures. Experts cite poor governance and little investment to overhaul the system. The country’s power generation capacity currently stands at around 36,000 megawatts, but it can transfer only around 24,000 megawatts across the country due to poor transmission lines.
This was Pakistan's second major power breakdown in less than three years. In 2015, an apparent rebel attack on a key power line plunged around 80 percent of the country into darkness. That blackout, one of the worst in Pakistan’s history, deprived of power the country's major cities and affected one of its international airports.
