The current was partially restored in the morning in the capital, Islamabad, and in Peshawar. But the big economic hub of Karachi and the second largest agglomeration, Lahore, were always deprived of electricity at the end of the morning.
mo12345lemonde with AFP
This is the second incident of this magnitude in just two years in this country of more than 220 million inhabitants. A gigantic power outage affected, Monday, January 23 in the morning, a large part of Pakistan, including the largest cities in Lahore and Karachi, according to the authorities.
Electricity cuts are frequent in Pakistan, which has been facing a chronic energy crisis for years and whose distribution system is complex and dilapidated. The breakdown, which lasted several hours, is due to a dysfunction that occurred at 7:30 a.m. (3:30 a.m. in Paris). “According to initial information, the frequency of the system on the national network fell this morning [Monday], which resulted in a huge breakdown,” said the Ministry of Energy on Twitter.
The current was partially restored in the morning in the capital, Islamabad, and in Peshawar, in the northwest of the country. But the great economic hub of Karachi, with its 15 million inhabitants, and the second largest agglomeration, Lahore (10 million inhabitants), were still deprived of electricity at the end of the morning.
The breakdown did not have immediate repercussions on the health system, most hospitals being provided with rescue generators. Schools, on the other hand, most often use gas heating to warm up classes. 2>
recurring problem
A similar breakdown had plunged most of the country into darkness for several hours in January 2021, after a technical dysfunction in the south of the country had triggered a chain reaction in several power plants.
Electricity cuts are a recurring problem in Pakistan. But the situation has further deteriorated in recent months, its dramatic financial situation aggravating its energy supply difficulties a little more. Households have been affected, but the industry also, for example in the textile sector, which represents around 60 % of Pakistani exports.
In May 2018, another large breakdown had affected the country, the electricity remaining partially cut for more than nine hours. In 2015, 80 % of the country, whose big cities, had been plunged into darkness by a power cut caused, according to the government, by an attack by Balouthes separatists against a high -voltage line in a remote district of the province of Balutchistan. This breakdown, one of the most serious in the history of Pakistan, had even affected one of the international airports.