QUETTA-
Around 28 districts of southwestern Balochistan province remain without power supply since the nationwide breakdown on Saturday night, private media reported.
According to reports, the electricity demand in the province is 1650 megawatts against the supply of only 170 megawatts.
Acute gap between demand and supply is resulting in up to 22 hours of loadshedding in many districts of the province.
In Quetta – the provincial capital – there is a 12-hour-long power loadshedding.
QESCO officials said that power supply from the national grid has not been fully restored yet.
Pakistan was plunged into darkness after a key power transmission line broke down early on Sunday in an incident blamed on a rebel attack, the latest reminder of the country’s crippling energy crisis.
The power failure, one of the worst Pakistan has experienced, caused electricity to be cut in major cities throughout the country, including the capital Islamabad.
It was later restored in much of the country, with the national power company saying normal distribution would resume within hours.
Officials said the blackout began after midnight when a transmission line connecting a privately-run power plant to the national grid was damaged.
A senior official at the National Grid station in Islamabad said around 80 percent of the country was hit by power breakdown.
Minister of State for Water and Power Abid Sher Ali later issued an apology and said electricity had been restored in most of the country, blaming the breakdown on rebels blowing up the line in Naseerabad district, which lies in southwestern Baluchistan province.
A spokesman for the national power company said that “electricity has been restored in all parts of the country.”
“Some 6,000 megawatts of electricity has been added to the national system and within a couple of hours distribution will be normal,” the spokesman said.
