The blackout began at about 11.50 p.m. on Saturday when power failures were reported in all major cities, including Islamabad, Lahore, Peshawar, Karachi and Rawalpindi…reports Asian Lite News
A day after hundreds of millions of Pakistanis were left without power due to a technical fault in the country’s power distribution system, seven staff, including a manager and six junior employees, at one of country’s biggest power plants have been suspended.
The blackout began at about 11.50 p.m. on Saturday when power failures were reported in all major cities, including Islamabad, Lahore, Peshawar, Karachi and Rawalpindi, lasting around 18 hours in most areas.
According to a report from the NDTV, the employees at Guddu thermal power plant in Sindh province were suspended “on account of the negligence of duty”, according to the Central Power Generation Company, which operates the facility.
Guddu plant, built in the 1980s, is one of the country’s largest and generates power from furnace oil and natural gas.
The blackout, which started shortly before midnight on Saturday, was caused by an engineering fault which tripped the system and caused power plants across the country to shut down, according to National Transmission and Despatch Company.
The blackout was caused after the frequency in the national power distribution system suddenly fell from 50 to zero, Federal Minister for Energy Omar Ayub Khan said in a tweet, adding that “we are trying to ascertain what caused the drop in frequency”.
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