IN THE WORLD TODAY
Strategy causes mass power cut
MUCH of Pakistan was left without power for many hours yesterday after an energy- saving measure by the government backfired. Electricity was turned off across the country during low usage hours overnight to conserve fuel – but technicians were left unable to boot up the system all at once after daybreak, officials said.
The outage spread panic and raised questions about the cashstrapped government’s handling of the crisis.
Many major cities, including the capital Islamabad, and remote towns and villages across Pakistan were without electricity for more than 12 hours before engineers partially restored power across much of the country.
As the outage continued into the night, authorities deployed additional police at markets around the country to provide security.
The nationwide electricity breakdown left many people without drinking water as pumps powered by electricity failed to work. Schools, hospitals, factories and shops were without power amid the harsh winter weather.
Energy minister Khurram Dastgir said that engineers are working to restore the power supply across the country, including in the capital of Islamabad, and tried to reassure the nation that power will be fully restored within the next 12 hours.
According to the minister, during winter, electricity usage typically goes down overnight and power generators are shut off.
When engineers tried to turn the systems back on, a “fluctuation in voltage” was observed, which “forced engineers to shut down the power grid” stations one by one.
Dastagir insisted that this was not a major crisis, and that electricity was being restored in phases. By yesterday afternoon, Dastagir told reporters at another press conference that Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif had ordered an inquiry into the outage.