ISLAMABAD: Power supply was restored across Pakistan Sunday after the country was hit by a massive electricity blackout, officials said.
The electricity distribution system in the nation of more than 210 million people is a complex and delicate web, and a problem in one section of the grid can lead to cascading breakdowns countrywide.
The latest blackout, which lasted roughly 18 hours in most areas, was caused by “an engineering fault” in southern Pakistan at 11:41 p.m. local time on Saturday (1841 GMT), which tripped the system and caused power plants to shut down, power minister Omar Ayub Khan told a press conference in Islamabad.
Experts were however trying to determine the precise details of what happened as well as “the exact location of the fault,” the power minister said, adding that it would take time as the area was still covered in dense fog.
A spokesman from the National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC) reported that “all 500KV and 200KV grid stations and transmission lines have started supplying electricity” and that “the power supply has been restored across Pakistan.”
Jokes and memes flooded Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp, mostly ridiculing Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government and its performance after the breakdown.
“Power breakdown in Pakistan is blackmailing Imran Khan,” tweeted Musarrat Ahmedzeb in reference to the premier’s recent statement accusing Shiite protesters of blackmailing him after the killing of 10 miners.
“What a start for the new year... let us seek Allah the Almighty’s mercy,” read another tweet, while a message on WhatsApp said: “new Pakistan sleeps in a night mode.”
There were no immediate reports of disruption at hospitals, which often rely on backup generators.
Netblocks, which monitors Internet outages, said web connectivity in the country “collapsed” as a result of the blackout.
Connectivity was at “62 percent of ordinary levels,” it said in a tweet.
The outage marked Pakistan’s second major power breakdown in less than three years. In May 2018, power was partially disrupted for more than nine hours.
In 2015, an apparent rebel attack on a key power line plunged around 80 percent of Pakistan into darkness.
That blackout, one of the worst in Pakistan’s history, caused electricity to be cut in major cities nationwide, including Islamabad, and even affected one of the country’s international airports.
Power restored in Pakistan after nationwide blackout
https://arab.news/bscb9
Power restored in Pakistan after nationwide blackout
- The latest blackout, which lasted roughly 18 hours in most areas, was caused by “an engineering fault” in southern Pakistan
- It tripped the system and caused power plants to shut down, Pakistan’s power minister said
‘Doomsday Clock’ moves closer to midnight over threats from nukes, climate change, AI
- At the end of the Cold War, the clock was as close as 17 minutes to midnight. In the past few years, to address rapid global changes, the group has changed from counting down the minutes until midnight to counting down the seconds
WASHINGTON: Earth is closer than it’s ever been to destruction as Russia, China, the US and other countries become “increasingly aggressive, adversarial, and nationalistic,” a science-oriented advocacy group said Tuesday as it advanced its “Doomsday Clock” to 85 seconds till midnight.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist members had an initial demonstration on Friday and then announced their results on Tuesday.
The scientists cited risks of nuclear war, climate change, potential misuse of biotechnology and the increasing use of artificial intelligence without adequate controls as it made the annual announcement, which rates how close humanity is from ending.
Last year the clock advanced to 89 seconds to midnight.
Since then, “hard-won global understandings are collapsing, accelerating a winner-takes-all great power competition and undermining the international cooperation” needed to reduce existential risks, the group said.
They worry about the threat of escalating conflicts involving nuclear-armed countries, citing the Russia-Ukraine war, May’s conflict between India and Pakistan and whether Iran is capable of developing nuclear weapons after strikes last summer by the US and Israel.
International trust and cooperation is essential because, “if the world splinters into an us-versus-them, zero-sum approach, it increases the likelihood that we all lose,” said Daniel Holz, chair of the group’s science and security board.
The group also highlighted droughts, heat waves and floods linked to global warming, as well as the failure of nations to adopt meaningful agreements to fight global warming — singling out US President Donald Trump’s efforts to boost fossil fuels and hobble renewable energy production.
Starting in 1947, the advocacy group used a clock to symbolize the potential and even likelihood of people doing something to end humanity.
At the end of the Cold War, it was as close as 17 minutes to midnight. In the past few years, to address rapid global changes, the group has changed from counting down the minutes until midnight to counting down the seconds.
The group said the clock could be turned back if leaders and nations worked together to address existential risks.
