A row over unpaid bills sparked a huge power blackout in Pakistan's biggest city, Karachi, leaving most of its 12 million residents without electricity yesterday, officials said.
The outage came after Pakistan's main power utility accused the electricity company supplying the southern port of refusing to settle debts of more than half a million dollars.
It affected bazaars, businesses and homes in the normally bustling economic hub and caused huge traffic jams as signals went out of order, witnesses said.
"KESC [Karachi Electric Supply Co] owes 34.8 billion rupees [US$548 million] to us, which they have avoided paying for many months," said Tahir Bisharat Cheema, the director general of the supply and management wing of the country's Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA).
He said the company only repaid 250 million rupees despite weekly reminders "to which they never replied."
"We sent them a final reminder on Wednesday and informed them that we would stop supplying electricity if the longstanding dues were not paid," Cheema said.
Karachi has a history of frequent powercuts, but they usually only affect certain districts for a few hours at a time. Many businesses have generators, but private households rarely do.
"We have got a small generator for our house, but it has proved highly expensive today because we don't know when power is going to come back," said Gulzar Ahmed, who lives in the middle class Liaquatabad neighborhood.
The city's power company said supplies were returning to about a third of the city later yesterday, but it accused the national utility of failing to warn it about the shutoff.
"They suddenly stopped supplying 300 megawatts to Karachi at 8am and the power supply fell to virtually zero," KESC spokesman Sultan Hassan said.
"KESC staff are making efforts to restore electricity supply but it needs WAPDA supplies resumed first" he said.
Pakistan suffered major outages earlier this year, which authorities blamed on a lack of water for hydropower facilities.
AIR DEFENSE: The Norwegian missile system has proved highly effective in Ukraine in its war against Russia, and the US has recommended it for Taiwan, an expert said The Norwegian Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) Taiwan ordered from the US would be installed in strategically important positions in Taipei and New Taipei City to guard the region, the Ministry of National Defense said in statement yesterday. The air defense system would be deployed in Taipei’s Songshan District (松山) and New Taipei City’s Tamsui District (淡水), the ministry said, adding that the systems could be delivered as soon as the end of this year. The US Defense Security Cooperation Agency has previously said that three NASAMS would be sold to Taiwan. The weapons are part of the 17th US arms sale to
INSURRECTION: The NSB said it found evidence the CCP was seeking snipers in Taiwan to target members of the military and foreign organizations in the event of an invasion The number of Chinese spies prosecuted in Taiwan has grown threefold over a four-year period, the National Security Bureau (NSB) said in a report released yesterday. In 2021 and 2022, 16 and 10 spies were prosecuted respectively, but that number grew to 64 last year, it said, adding that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was working with gangs in Taiwan to develop a network of armed spies. Spies in Taiwan have on behalf of the CCP used a variety of channels and methods to infiltrate all sectors of the country, and recruited Taiwanese to cooperate in developing organizations and obtaining sensitive information
BREAKTHROUGH: The US is making chips on par in yield and quality with Taiwan, despite people saying that it could not happen, the official said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has begun producing advanced 4-nanometer (nm) chips for US customers in Arizona, US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said, a milestone in the semiconductor efforts of the administration of US President Joe Biden. In November last year, the commerce department finalized a US$6.6 billion grant to TSMC’s US unit for semiconductor production in Phoenix, Arizona. “For the first time ever in our country’s history, we are making leading edge 4-nanometer chips on American soil, American workers — on par in yield and quality with Taiwan,” Raimondo said, adding that production had begun in recent
Seven hundred and sixty-four foreigners were arrested last year for acting as money mules for criminals, with many entering Taiwan on a tourist visa for all-expenses-paid trips, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said on Saturday. Although from Jan. 1 to Dec. 26 last year, 26,478 people were arrested for working as money mules, the bureau said it was particularly concerned about those entering the country as tourists or migrant workers who help criminals and scammers pick up or transfer illegally obtained money. In a report, officials divided the money mules into two groups, the first of which are foreigners, mainly from Malaysia
RSS