Pakistan cities get power back on after massive blackout

Power returned to most cities in Pakistan on Tuesday, a day after a blackout that left the country of 220 million people without power.

The blackout began at 07H30 (02H30 GMT) Monday due to a fault linked to cost-saving measures taken to deal with a severe economic crisis.

Energy Minister Khurram Dastgir Khan said Monday night that power was gradually being restored.

The major cities of Karachi and Lahore returned to power in the evening, although there continued to be brief interruptions.

The capital Islamabad and other cities, including Rawalpindi, Quetta, Peshawar and Gujranwala, also reported power restoration, while some rural areas remained without power.

The country's power grid is a complex system where problems can be triggered quickly.

Khan said a change in the frequency of the national grid caused the outage when the generating units were switched on Monday morning.

The units are temporarily shut down during winter nights to save fuel, he told reporters.

Power outages are common in Pakistan, where hospitals, factories and government institutions often use private generators, which are often out of reach for most of the population.

Pakistan's economy is already battered by rampant inflation, a depreciating rupee and a shortage of international reserves, and the blackouts are exacerbating the situation.