Pakistan’s national power grid experienced a major breakdown on Saturday, leaving millions of people in darkness, government officials said.
“A countrywide blackout has been caused by a sudden plunge in the frequency in the power transmission system,” Power Minister Omar Ayub Khan said on Twitter.
Residents from cities across the country, including Karachi and Lahore, reported massive power outages on social media.
‘Power transmission failure’
Pakistan’s Energy Ministry urged people to remain calm while the authorities dealt with the problem. The ministry said that the outage had been caused by a fault in the power transmission system.
“Electricity blackout in the country due to sudden drop in the frequency of power transmission system from 50 to 0 in less than a second,” it said.
Initial reports stated that the fault arose in the Guddu power plant and then caused other power plants to shut down.
Follow-up tweets said the ministry was working to solve the problem “quickly” and gave updates as different facilities were fired up again.
“Systematic restoration of power will be initiated soon,” they explained. “Once the initial frequency is met, the restoration work speeds up.”
The blackout is one of the worst that the country has experienced. In 2015, around 80% of the country was left without power after a key transmission line broke down.