Islamabad: As the country plunges into darkness, Pakistanis are coping up with the power ‘outrage’ in the best manner they could: with memes and rib-tickling content on the micro-blogging website, media reported.
Taking to Twitter, many users shared waking up to no electricity in their homes. Since then, #PowerOutrage has been trending on the internet.
Famous RJ and host, Anoushey Ashraf, tweeted, “While we spend billions on protecting our borders and interests (ahem) the country has officially run out of gas, dollars and now electricity. We never had education or infrastructure anyway. Pakistan’s a business for a chosen few families, the rest of us are mere sheep.”
Zunaira Inam Khan shared, “As we sit here with a nationwide power outage and our reserves reaching single digits, can we now accept that we’re fast approaching rock bottom and our ability to hold our borders will do no good if the country is crumbling from within? We need to rethink our priorities now!,” Express Tribune reported.
A countrywide power breakdown, triggered by a ‘frequency variation’ in the Pakistan national grid early Monday morning, has left large parts of the country including Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar and Quetta without electricity, Geo News reported.
Pakistan Power Minister Khurrum Dastagir, while talking to Geo News, said that the power generation units are temporarily shut down in winter at night as an economic measure to save fuel costs.
“When the systems were turned on at 7:30 a.m. this morning one by one, frequency variation was reported in the southern part of the country between Jamshoro and Dadu. There was a fluctuation in voltage and power generating units were shut down one by one due to cascading impact. This is not a major crisis,” said the federal minister as the country plunged into darkness for the second time in three months, Geo News reported.
The minister said that his ministry has started restoring some grid stations in Tarbela and Warsak.
“Peshawar Electric Supply Company (PESCO) and some grids of Islamabad Electric Supply Company (IESCO) have already been restored,” claimed the minister.
Talking about the breakdown in Karachi, the minister said that the matter in the port city is complicated as it has a complete electric supply system.
“We provide K-Electric about 1,000-1,100 megawatts routinely, however, it will be restored within a few hours. It is not certain how long will it take to sort this issue. However, my target is to restore electricity in the country in the next 12 hours,” said the minister.
Before the energy ministry’s announcement, different power distribution companies had confirmed the breakdown, Geo News reported.
According to Quetta Electric Supply Company (QESCO), the two transmission lines have tripped leaving 22 districts of Balochistan, including Quetta without power.
