The electrical system of Pakistan that was disrupted on Monday has been fully restored, Power Minister Khurram Dastgir claimed on Tuesday, amid reports that many parts of the country were still without electricity.

“This restoration started on Monday afternoon and evening. But at night our remaining areas… so there are 1,112 grid stations in the country and they are fully restored. Today at 5:15am Pakistan’s [electrical] system was back online,” he said while addressing a press conference on Tuesday.

Power had returned to most cities across Pakistan on Tuesday, a day after a nationwide breakdown left the country of 220 million people without electricity. The outage started around 7:30 am (0230 GMT) on Monday, a failure linked to a cost-cutting measure as Pakistan grapples with an economic crisis.

However, he added that nuclear power plants in Karachi and Chashma would take 48 to 72 hours for restoration. Coal plants also take two days to restore. Sahiwal and Engro Thar plants have synchronized. “Due to the unavailability of these plants, there will be some shortage of electricity in the country for 48 hours. So there will be load shedding on a limited scale. Industrial users will be exempted from this.”

Power networks were fully restored across the country as of Tuesday morning, a senior government source told Reuters. “All 1,112 grid stations restored within 24 hours nationwide,” the energy ministry said in a tweet.

However, Dastgir in his tweet earlier in the day insisted that there would be limited load management except for industrial users as around 6,600MW of coal and 3,500MW of nuclear plants were estimated to take 48 to 72 hours to restart.

In his second presser since the massive outage, he highlighted that the running of Warsak Dam in Balochistan was a “relief” for the government as it ensured the supply of electricity in some areas of Islamabad and Peshawar. Similarly, Uch Power Station was running in Sindh which helped in the complete restoration of power in the flood affected areas. The same source was used to provide electricity to flood hit areas of Balochistan.

He described the cause of the power outage as a “technical challenge” when the south and north transmission line experienced a “voltage swing” (uttar charaho hua voltage ka). The government was still trying to find out the cause of such a fault despite that more than 24 hours have passed.

Sources in Power Division told Aaj News on Monday that the power breakdown was caused by fuel shortage and technical faults.

He quashed “rumours” that the government was out of fuel to run power plants. He clarified that expensive plants were used less in order to lessen the impact of fuel cost adjustment on consumers.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif formed a three-member inquiry committee led by Minister of State for Petroleum Musadik Malik to look after the reasons behind the outage. The government would also check if there was external interference, like an internet attack, although that’s less likely, Dastgir said.

“We are trying that this incident does not happen again,” he said.

Gradual restoration

Dastgir Khan said on Monday evening that power was being gradually restored.

Electricity largely returned to mega cities Karachi and Lahore overnight, but with localised and brief falls in connection continuing.

The capital Islamabad and other cities, including Rawalpindi, Quetta, Peshawar and Gujranwala, also reported that the lights were back on.

However, some rural areas were still waiting to be reconnected.

The country’s power system is a complex and delicate web, where problems can quickly cascade.

Khan said a variation in frequency on the national grid caused the cut, as power generation units were turned on early Monday morning.

The units are temporarily switched off on winter nights to save fuel, he had told reporters earlier.

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

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

‘Sitting idle’

The economy is already hobbled by rampant inflation, a falling rupee and severely low foreign exchange 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 patrons.

“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.

Printer Khurrum Khan, 39, said orders were piling up because of the blackout. Unreliable power is “a permanent curse which our governments have failed to overcome”, he said.

Mobile phone services were also disrupted as a result of the outage, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority tweeted.

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

More to follow