‘WIDESPREAD BREAKDOWN’

Almost 220 Million Without Power in Pakistan in Massive Grid Failure

The blackout comes as the country tackles an alarming energy crisis.

Nearly 220 million people in Pakistan were left without power on Monday after a nationwide grid failure plunged the country into chaos. The local energy ministry said Pakistan’s national grid buckled at 7:34 a.m., “causing a widespread breakdown in the power system.” It’s not clear how long the outage will last, though a “limited number of grids” in the capital Islamabad and elsewhere were back online, the ministry later added. It comes as the South Asian country has been dealing with a serious energy crisis that has pushed lawmakers to bring in new rules to reduce Pakistan’s energy consumption. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif ordered all government departments to slash their energy use by almost a third earlier this month, and all restaurants and markets across Pakistan must now close 10 p.m. and 8:30 p.m., respectively.