Several cities left in the dark by outage
HOSPITALS FORCED TO CANCEL SURGERIES AS SCHOOLS CLOSE ACROSS PUNJAB AND KHYBER PAKHTUNKHWA
Amajor breakdown in the country’s electricity transmission system early yesterday led to blackouts in major parts of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), as well as the federal capital Islamabad.
The massive power failure, which left the national grid with a 4,000 Megawatt (MW) shortfall, occurred when the Tarbela, Mangla and Ghazi Barotha power plants tripped, apparently due to faults in the main transmission line, according to the Islamabad Electric Supply Company (IESCO) officials.
The tripping of main Tarbela transmission line also led to all four Chashma nuclear power plants to trip as well, officials said.
Parliament blackout
The power disruption also caused a blackout in the National Assembly, Punjab Assembly, as well as Supreme Court, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) and several other government offices, impeding routine proceedings.
The prolonged outage caused havoc at different hospitals in Islamabad and Lahore where surgeries for many patients were halted.
Doctors and patients at the Benazir Bhutto Hospital in Rawalpindi faced hardship due to the power failure.
“The backup generators have even stopped working as there is no electricity for the last seven hours,” said a medical officer, Saima Hameed.
Although Pakistanis endure frequent power outages almost daily, the scale and duration of the breakdown left many citizens puzzled.
“There’s no TV, no internet, no backup electricity. We don’t know what’s going and when the power would be restored,” said Ihsan Ali, a shop owner in Islamabad.
In addition to disruptions at schools, government offices and businesses, traffic lights also stopped causing chaos on the roads of Islamabad and Rawalpindi.
The breakdown also affected operations at the new Islamabad International Airport, where the offices of airlines and baggage handling remained halted for hours leading to long queues and difficulties for the travellers.
The sudden blackout affected various cities of Punjab including Lahore, Faisalabad, Multan, Bahawalpur as well as twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi. In KP, the outage affected Peshawar, Swat, Lakki Marwat and other cities.
The outage occurred due to a technical fault at the National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) yesterday morning, officials said.
“The breakdown triggered at the Guddu-Muzaffargarh power line, which created faults at the Tarbela and Guddu power stations” according to a Power Division spokesperson.
Following the technical fault at Tarbela, the power generation had electricity plunged to 12,000MW whereas the present energy demand of the country is around 20,000MW.
According to an official of Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), “Work has started on restoring power supply this afternoon, however, it will take some time. It could take hours to restore.”
Back to normal
Minister for Power Awais Leghari said electricity was being restored to the system after certain power plants tripped in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Speaking in the National Assembly yesterday, the minister said the situation had however been normalised in the federal capital.