Pakistanis living in rural areas of the country were forced to spend more than 8 to 16 hours in sweltering heat as loadshedding swept across the country. The power shortage comes at a time when a heatwave is predicted in the nation. According to a report by news agency Dawn, people living in urban areas of the nation complained of 6 to 10 hours of outages.
Lahore on Thursday suffered from power cuts of more than eight hours. The power cuts ranged from four to six hours in the day and two to four hours at night, a resident told news agency Dawn. Locals in rural Khanewal said that they have been experiencing longer power cuts for more than a week. People have pointed out that it is hard for them as the majority of citizens are fasting.
People familiar with the developments told the Pakistani news agency that the power cuts were caused due to drop in power generation by thermal plants caused due to shortage of gas and other fuels.
“With increasing temperatures, the total shortfall is ranging between 7,000 to 8,000MW, and it may surge further if the hot and dry weather persists in the coming days,” people mentioned above told the news agency.
The demand during the iftar hours at the Lahore Electric Supply Company rose to 4,600 MW while the supply was near 3,900MW. In case of the entire nation, Pakistan (barring the city of Karachi) is 18,500MW in peak hours while the supply was 14,500MW.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was another region which was suffering from long power outages. Residents say that it is hard to prepare meals amid the power cuts and businesses complain of being unable to meet deadlines due to the power crisis. The situation is only exacerbated due to rising temperatures and the heatwaves affecting Pakistan and northwest India. Karachi’s electricity providers said that they will continue with loadshedding in select areas of the city to meet the demand and supply gap. Quetta Electric Supply Company (QESCO) also said that they resorted to power outages to meet the increasing demand in power.
Read all the Latest News here
Comments
0 comment