Massive outage leaves millions in Pakistan without power, drinking water


Pakistan's national power grid suffered its second major failure in three months on Monday, stranding millions without electricity and, in some instances, drinking water, multiple outlets have reported.
The outage was caused by a "large voltage surge in the south of the grid, which affected the entire network," Reuters reports, per Energy Minister Khurrum Dastagir. It is unclear at the moment how long the outage will last, though restoration efforts are already underway, CNN adds. Dastagir said the government is hoping things are back to normal by tonight, per The Associated Press.
A separate senior official blamed this blackout and others on the country's aging infrastructure. "There's an underlying weakness in the system," the official told Reuters. "Generators are too far from the load centers and transmission lines are too long and insufficient." And separately, some of the country's roughly 220 million residents suffer from almost daily blackouts, Reuters adds.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The Monday outage comes as Pakistan otherwise struggles with a larger economic and energy crisis, due to which Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif earlier this month ordered both federal departments and public citizens to cut back on energy usage and consumption.
The incident also calls to mind a similar widespread blackout in 2021, which was "attributed at the time to a technical fault in Pakistan's power generation and distribution system," AP writes.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Brigid Kennedy worked at The Week from 2021 to 2023 as a staff writer, junior editor and then story editor, with an interest in U.S. politics, the economy and the music industry.
-
New York court tosses Trump's $500M fraud fine
Speed Read A divided appeals court threw out a hefty penalty against President Trump for fraudulently inflating his wealth
-
Trump said to seek government stake in Intel
Speed Read The president and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan reportedly discussed the proposal at a recent meeting
-
US to take 15% cut of AI chip sales to China
Speed Read Nvidia and AMD will pay the Trump administration 15% of their revenue from selling artificial intelligence chips to China
-
NFL gets ESPN stake in deal with Disney
Speed Read The deal gives the NFL a 10% stake in Disney's ESPN sports empire and gives ESPN ownership of NFL Network
-
Samsung to make Tesla chips in $16.5B deal
Speed Read Tesla has signed a deal to get its next-generation chips from Samsung
-
FCC greenlights $8B Paramount-Skydance merger
Speed Read The Federal Communications Commission will allow Paramount to merge with the Hollywood studio Skydance
-
Tesla reports plummeting profits
Speed Read The company may soon face more problems with the expiration of federal electric vehicle tax credits
-
Dollar faces historic slump as stocks hit new high
Speed Read While stocks have recovered post-Trump tariffs, the dollar has weakened more than 10% this year