(Islamabad) A gigantic power outage affected a large part of Pakistan throughout the day on Monday, including the largest cities of Lahore and Karachi, the problem still not being resolved at the end of the afternoon.
Electricity cuts are frequent in Pakistan, which has faced a chronic energy crisis for years and whose distribution system is complex and dilapidated.
The outage was caused by a malfunction at 7:30 a.m. local time (9:30 p.m. EST Sunday) and power was only partially restored by nightfall in the capital Islamabad and a few other locations. .
The great economic hub of Karachi, with its 15 million inhabitants, and the second largest agglomeration, Lahore (10 million), were still largely deprived of electricity.
“We hope power will be restored across the country by tonight (Monday evening),” Energy Minister Khurram Dastagir Khan said in a video statement.
The outage was caused by a variation in the electrical frequency on the national grid, when the power generation units restarted on Monday morning.
These units are temporarily turned off at night in winter to save fuel, Khan told reporters.
Most hospitals, industries and government institutions are equipped with generators. But households and small businesses often do not have the means to afford such equipment.
In northern Pakistan, temperatures were expected to fall below 0° on Monday evening. Gas heating is the most widespread, but is also not always very reliable, load shedding being frequent due to a shortage of gas.
Pakistan’s economy is already faltering with rampant inflation, a plummeting national currency – the rupee – and low foreign exchange reserves. Such a power outage only increases the pressure on small businesses.
PHOTO AAMIR QURESHI, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
In Rawalpindi, the capital’s twin town, Muhammad Iftikhar Sheikh, a 71-year-old appliance salesman, lamented not being able to test his appliances in front of customers.
“Customers never buy without trying first,” he cursed. “We’re all just sitting there, doing nothing. »
In schools, classes often took place in the dark, for those without battery lighting.
In Karachi (South), where the temperatures were higher, a trader told AFP that he feared that his entire stock of dairy products would be lost, without refrigeration.
And Khurrum Khan, a 39-year-old printer, saw the orders piling up, without being able to fulfill them. Electricity problems are “a permanent curse that our governments have failed to get rid of”, he regretted.
A similar outage in January 2021 plunged most of this country of 220 million people into darkness for several hours, after a technical malfunction in the south of the country set off a chain reaction at several power stations.
Power cuts are a recurring problem in Pakistan. But the situation has further deteriorated in recent months, its dramatic financial situation further aggravating its energy supply difficulties.
Households have been affected, but so has industry, for example in the textile sector, which accounts for around 60% of Pakistani exports.