Sawt Falasteen - Pakistan nationwide power outage continues into night

Pakistan's national power system is a complex and delicate web where problems can quickly cascade.

The breakdown was caused by a fault in the national grid at around 7:30 am (0230 GMT), plunging much of the country into darkness.

"We hope that the electricity will be restored throughout the country by tonight," Energy Minister Khurram Dastagir Khan said in a video statement.

The cut was caused by a variation in frequency on the national grid as power generation units were turned on early in the morning.

The units had been temporarily switched off at night to save fuel, Khan earlier told the media.

Localised power cuts are common in Pakistan and hospitals, factories and government institutions are often kept running by private generators. The machines are, however, beyond the means of most citizens and small businesses.

In parts of northern Pakistan, temperatures were due to drop below freezing on Monday night with supplies of natural gas -- the most common heating method -- also unreliable due to load-shedding.

The economy is already hobbled by rampant inflation, a falling rupee, and severely low forex reserves, with the power cut piling extra pressure on small businesses.

In the garrison city of Rawalpindi, homeware trader Muhammad Iftikhar Sheikh, 71, said he was unable to demonstrate electronic products to browsing customers.

"The customers never buy without testing first," he said. "All of us are sitting idle."

Schools mostly continued either in the dark or using battery-powered lighting.

A shop owner in the southern port city Karachi, where temperatures were higher, told AFP he feared his entire dairy stock would spoil without refrigeration.

Thirty-nine-year-old printer Khurrum Khan said orders were piling up because of the blackout.

Unreliable power is "a permanent curse which our governments have failed to overcome", Khan complained.

Repair work was underway, with limited power restored in some parts of the country, including the capital Islamabad.

Karachi, with a population of more than 15 million, and Lahore, with a population of more than 10 million, both remained largely without power as darkness fell.

A similar breakdown in January 2021 affected the entire country, after a fault occurred in southern Pakistan, tripping the national transmission system.

V.Said--SF-PST