Pakistan's national grid fails for the second time in three months

Pakistan’s national grid suffered a major breakdown on Monday, the power ministry said, leaving nearly 220 million people without electricity for the second time in three months and highlighting the infrastructural weakness of this heavily indebted nation.
 

Energy Minister Khurrum Dastagir said 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 local time, Dastagir said, adding: “We are