Gradual restoration of power supply underway: Omar Ayub

The blackout hit all of Pakistan's major cities

ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) - Federal Minister for Power, Petroleum and Natural Resources Omar Ayub Khan has said that gradual restoration of power supply is underway after the country was hit by a massive blackout early Sunday.

Omar Ayub, while addressing a press conference with Information Minister Shibli Faraz, said that a fault occurred at Guddu power station at 2341 hrs, dropping the frequency to zero within a second and 10,302 MW were pulled out of the system.

The minister said that complete restoration will take some time; however, majority of cities have been energized while K-Electric has been provided with 400 MW for the port city.

While accusing past governments of ignoring transmission, he said faults occur due to out-date system as no effort was made in the past to upgrade transmission and during tenure of PML-N, transmission lines were able to handle no more than 18500 MW. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government has increased the capacity to more than 23,000 MW.

He said the incumbent government is spending over three hundred billion rupees to upgrade transmission system for smooth power supply.

He further said that investigation into the outage has been launched but exact nature of fault the can only be ascertained after reduction in fog.

It is pertinent to mention here that Pakistan was hit by a massive power blackout early Sunday, officials said, with much of the country, including all major cities, plunged into darkness.

The electricity distribution system in the nation of more than 210 million people is a complex -- and delicate -- web, and a problem in one section of the grid can lead to cascading breakdowns countrywide.

The blackout hit all major cities of Pakistan, including the capital Islamabad, economic hub Karachi and the second-largest city Lahore.