Pakistan's national grid suffered a major breakdown on Monday, the power ministry said, leaving millions of people without electricity for the second time in three months and highlighting the infrastructural weakness of this heavily indebted nation.
Power Minister Khurrum Dastagir told Reuters the outage was caused by a large voltage surge in the south of the grid, which affected the entire network.
Supplies were being partially restored from north to the south, he added, nearly six hours after factories, hospitals and schools reported outages. The grid should be fully functioning by 10 pm time (1700 GMT), Dastagir said, adding: "We are trying our utmost to achieve restoration before that."
The last major outage in October also took hours to restore. A senior ministry official blamed this outage, and the frequent blackouts that Pakistan's 220 million people suffer, on its ageing grid.
"There's an underlying weakness in the system," said the official, who declined to be named as they were not authorised to speak to the media. "Generators are too far from the load centres and transmission lines are too long and insufficient."
Like much of the national infrastructure, Pakistan's grid desperately needs an upgrade that the government, which has lurched from one International Monetary Fund bail-out to the next, says it can ill afford.
Pakistan has enough installed power capacity to meet demand, but it lacks resources to run its oil-and-gas-powered plants and the sector is so heavily in debt that it cannot afford to invest in infrastructure and power lines.
The outage affected swathes of the country, from the financial capital Karachi to the capital Islamabad, the eastern city of Lahore and Peshawar in the north. Trading on the stock exchange was unaffected.
In Peshawar, a city of more than 2.3 million people, some residents said they were unable to get drinking water because the pumps were powered by electricity. Telecom companies and several hospitals said they had switched on their backup generators.
"My kids and I could not take a shower this morning because there was no water due to the power crisis," said bank employee Hassan Imran in Karachi. "They went to school, and I came to the office, without a shower."
(Reuters)
Moglai Bap and Mo Chara of Kneecap perform at Glastonbury Festival at Worthy Farm in Pilton, Somerset, Britain, June 28, 2025. REUTERS/Jaimi Joy
Police may probe anti-Israel comments at Glastonbury
BRITISH police said they were considering whether to launch an investigation after performers at Glastonbury Festival made anti-Israel comments during their shows.
"We are aware of the comments made by acts on the West Holts Stage at Glastonbury Festival this afternoon," Avon and Somerset Police, in western England, said on X late on Saturday (28).
Irish hip-hop group Kneecap and punk duo Bob Vylan made anti-Israeli chants in separate shows on the West Holts stage on Saturday. One of the members of Bob Vylan chanted "Death, death, to the IDF" in a reference to the Israel Defense Forces.
"Video evidence will be assessed by officers to determine whether any offences may have been committed that would require a criminal investigation," the police statement said.
The Israeli Embassy in Britain said it was "deeply disturbed by the inflammatory and hateful rhetoric expressed on stage at the Glastonbury Festival".
Prime minister Keir Starmer said earlier this month it was "not appropriate" for Kneecap to appear at Glastonbury.
The band's frontman Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh was charged with a terrorism offence last month for allegedly displaying a flag in support of Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah at a concert in November. He has denied the charge.
A British government minister said it was appalling that the anti-Israel chants had been made at Glastonbury, and that the festival's organisers and the BBC broadcaster - which is showing the event - had questions to answer.
Health secretary Wes Streeting said he was also appalled by violence committed by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.
"I'd also say to the Israeli Embassy, get your own house in order in terms of the conduct of your own citizens and the settlers in the West Bank," Streeting told Sky News.
"I wish they'd take the violence of their own citizens towards Palestinians more seriously," he said.
(Reuters)