Pakistan’s blackout Lightens up Twitter

A breakdown in Pakistan's national power grid dive the nation into darkness on Saturday night, as
indicated by authorities, leaving a huge number of individuals without power in all major cities
including Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi.

In a series of tweets, Pakistan’s Energy Minister Omar Ayub Khan said: “A fault has been created in
Guddu at 11:41. The fault tripped in the country’s high transmission, causing the system’s frequency
to drop from 50 to 0 in less than a second. Power plants have been shut down due to falling
frequencies”. The power restored in some parts of the country after 6 to 7 hours while in other parts
it took more than 20 hours for authorities to take the situation back to normal. For Pakistanis power
outages lasting a number of hours are not uncommon. The last time there was a near national
blackout like this was in 2015. As far as the hospitals are concerned, there have been no reports of
problems at hospitals, which have their own back-up supplies. According to a senior member of staff
at a major hospital in the city of Karachi “We could maintain services for 48-72 hours without
mainline power”.

Moreover talking about the reasons of the power outrage, poor maintenance and subsequent failure
of the protection system in the national grid triggered this power outrage. The government specially
the energy and information ministers criticised past governments for focusing solely on power
generation and neglecting the transmission system.

While authorities in Pakistan are attempting to restore the power in the country, many residents
used Twitter to fight the boredom. #Blackout began to trend on Twitter, with many sharing hilarious
memes and jokes using the hashtag. Some said that “There is no #Blackout in Interior Sindh Because
we didn’t gave Electricity yet!”, some commented: "Finally Imran khan introduces night mode in
Naya Pakistan” while the others twitted that “someone is restarting the country”

These netizens and twitter users lit up the twitter with memes and jokes, thus made the situation
less graver and contented for people who were taking this outrage serious and frightening.