Accidental fault disrupts electricity in southern Pakistan

Pakistan on Thursday faced a major power breakdown due to an accidental fault, depriving a large swathe of the countrys southern region, including its financial hub Karachi, of electricity.

Energy Minister Khurram Dastgir addressing a press conference said the technical experts were working diligently and that normal electricity would be restored in the affected areas by tonight.

The Ministry of Energy announced on social media that the problem was due to an accidental fault.

Several power plants in the south are tripping in phases due to an accidental fault in the countrys southern transmission system. As a result, there have been disruptions in the supply of electricity to the countrys south, the ministry tweeted. Dastgir said that the priority was to restore normalcy in Karachi which was done by isolating it from the rest of the country and by making the Karachi Electric company system independent.

Dastgir said that he was monitoring the situation and so far 4,700 megawatt was restored out of the total 8,000MW that was cut off due to the mishap.

We expect that those plants will start production in the next few hours, and as I said, we will completely restore the system between 7-8 pm, he said.

Talking about the fault, he said that human error could not be ruled out but he would not blame anyone until the inquiry was completed. We have to find the actual cause, whether it was an accident or there was another reason, he said.

The Ministry for Power has constituted a high-level inquiry committee to ascertain facts about the partial breakdown. It would submit a report within four days.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Federal staff and is auto-published from a syndicated feed.)