Hours after a major power breakdown plunged the entire country into darkness, Different rumours panicked the people and they stayed uneasy whole night. Energy Minister Omar Ayub said on Sunday morning that power supply was expected to be completely restored soon.
The blackout was reported a little before midnight by citizens on social media from across the country, including major urban centres such as Karachi, Hyderabad Islamabad, Lahore Muzaffargarh, Dera Ghazi Khan, Bajhawalpur, Rahimyar Khan , Faisalabad and Multan, as well as smaller towns and cities, People are silhouetted on vehicle's headlights on a dark street during widespread power outages in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, on Sunday, Jan 10. Pakistan's national power grid experienced a major breakdown late night on Saturday, leaving millions of people in darkness.
People of South Punjab said that there was a fault in power distribution system otherwise their was no shut down in South Punjab and upper Punjab because these area are generating more than 50 percent electricity in Muzaffargarh, Lalpir, Kotadu, Abdul Hakim and other areas.
Addressing a press conference in Islamabad,Omar Ayub said that investigations were ongoing to ascertain the cause of the breakdown at Guddu power plant that had plunged the country into darkness."We don't know the reasons at this time since we'd sent teams at night to Guddu [power plant] and there was a lot of fog, nothing could be seen at the time [...] as the day goes on and the fog clears, the investigation will be conducted [to ascertain] where the fault occurred."
Ayub said that at 11:41pm on Saturday, the Guddu power plant developed a fault and "within a second, the frequency dropped". He further explained that in technical terms, this is called a cascade effect, since "one after the other" the safety systems of the power plant began to shut down.
The minister said that this was similar to a fuse blowing which has to be manually reset, and the power plant being shut down had affected the entire country.
The energy minister said that it will take a few more hours for the electric grid to be completely restored, adding, however, that power supply had already resumed in many cities. He said that the Tarbela power plant was fired up soon after the breakdown, following which power supply was restored to Islamabad, Rawalpindi and half of Lahore.
Other cities in Punjab like Jhang, Mianwali and Multan "to a large extent had been energised", while a supply of 400 megawatt was released to K-Electric for Karachi, he added.
System failure
Earlier, the Ministry of Energy spokesperson, tweeting from the ministry's official Twitter handle, said that according to initial reports, the Guddu power plant developed a fault at 11:41pm on Saturday night.
“The fault caused the country’s high transmission lines to trip, which in turn caused the system frequency to drop from 50 to 0 in less than a second.
The drop in frequency caused power plants to shut down.”Some time later, the energy minister tweeted that power supply was being restored to cities in phases, starting with Islamabad.
According to Ayub, the power breakdown was caused after the frequency in the national power distribution system suddenly fell from 50 to zero.
Restoration efforts
By late morning, power had been restored to some areas of major cities such as Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi, authorities announced on Twitter.
"132kv Grids Around Lahore Energized," Ayub tweeted just before 8am.The K-Electric, which is the sole power distributor in Karachi, also said that power was being restored in phases to the port city.Engineering teams are making "full efforts" to restore electricity supply, the utility service provider said on Twitter.
There were no immediate reports of disruption at hospitals, which can often rely on back-up generators.
AFP quoted a water and power ministry spokesman as saying that power had been restored to some parts of the country but many areas in Lahore and Karachi were still waiting.
Netblocks, which monitors internet outages, said internet connectivity in the country “collapsed” as a result of the blackout.
Connectivity was at “62 percent of ordinary levels,” it said in a tweet.
As the country was plunged into darkness following a massive power breakdown late on Saturday night, Pakistanis took to Twitter, initially trying to discover what had happened.
However, as people exchanged information about their respective areas, the confusion gave way to characteristic Pakistani humour as people started sharing memes and poking fun at Prime Minister Imran Khan's "Naya Pakistan".Loadshedding and BlackOutPakistan were among the top trends on Twitter as people came up with their own hilarious reasons for the power outage, with some suggesting it was a classic case of "restart and see if it works".
Some people suggested that the power breakdown was "revenge" by former special assistant to the prime minister on power Tabish Gohar who recently resigned. An official had told Dawn that Gohar was fed up with interference in his workings and too many cooks in the pot.Academic and columnist Umair Javed questioned whether the outgoing SAPM had "taken the electricity of the entire country with him".Others poked fun, saying the country was being "switched off and on to see if that worked".Some people wondered where the candles were, while others said another "mafia" would spring up now.
"The entire country is tripping," another user said.Another user shared a picture of a visibly frustrated prime minister with the caption "when you forget to pay the electricity bill".The prime minister featured prominently in most jokes.
"In last 72 year's @ImranKhanPTI is the first Prime Minister of Pak who introduce Dark Mode in the whole country. Wow Ye hota hai leader, ye hota hai vision," tweeted one user.
Journalist Amber Rahim Shamsi said that while the country was without power, WhatsApp groups were "electrified".While power is yet to be restored in several areas across the country, one thing is for sure: Pakistanis have a strong meme game.
