Pakistan’s prime minister on Tuesday apologized to the nation for a major, daylong power outage that disrupted normal life across the country and drew criticism from millions who were left without electricity amid the harsh winter weather. Monday's blackout engulfed schools, factories and shops, and many among Pakistan's 220 million people were without drinking water as pumps powered by electricity also failed to work. In key businesses and institutions, including main hospitals, military and government facilities, backup generators kicked in. Power was mostly restored, though some parts of the country still experienced blackouts on Tuesday. “On behalf of my government, I would like to express my sincere regrets for the inconvenience our citizens suffered due to power outage yesterday," tweeted Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif. “On my orders an inquiry is underway to determine reasons of the power failure," he said adding that the probe will uncover who was responsible. Read more: Lights out in Pakistan as energy-saving move backfires At a press conference earlier Tuesday, Energy Minister Khurram Dastgir defended the government’s handling of the collapse of the grid and lauded engineers and technicians for their efforts to boot up the system. He made no reference to the fact that an energy-saving measure by the government had backfired. Authorities had turned off electricity during low-usage hours on Sunday night to conserve fuel, according to an energy-saving plan. Efforts to turn power back on early on Monday morning led to the system-wide meltdown. “Today, at 5:15 in the morning, power was fully restored,” Dastgir said Tuesday. He blamed the outage on a technical glitch but also floated a “remote chance" that it was caused by hackers targeting the country's grid systems. The minister also expressed faith in Sharif's three-member committee, which is expected to complete a preliminary investigation within days. “We will fully cooperate" with it, he said. Read more: Pakistan orders malls to close early amid economic crisis He cautioned that some regions may still face “routine power outages" this week as Pakistan's two nuclear power plants and coal plants have yet to come fully online. The outage was reminiscent of a massive blackout in January 2021, attributed at the time to a technical fault in Pakistan’s power generation and distribution system. Pakistan gets at least 60% of its electricity from fossil fuels, while nearly 27% of the electricity is generated by hydropower. The contribution of nuclear and solar power to the nation’s grid is about 10%. Fawad Chaudhry, a senior leader at the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party on Monday criticized the government for mismanaging the country's economy and said the outage was a reflection of the government's incompetence. Grappling with one of its worst economic crisis in recent years amid dwindling foreign exchange reserves, Pakistan is currently in talks with the International Monetary Fund to soften some conditions on a $6 billion bailout. Sharif's government say the harsh conditions will trigger further inflation hikes. The IMF released the last crucial tranche of $1.1 billion to Islamabad in August but since then, discussions between the two parties have oscillated due to Pakistan’s reluctance to impose new tax measures.

Doctors and nurses at Barishal’s Sher-e-bangla Medical College Hospital (SBMCH) are finding it hard to provide treatment to patients as electricity supply remained snapped in five units of the hospital for the last couple of days.  Surgery ward no 3 and 4 of G-block(male), surgery ward no 1 of A Block(male) and I block(Eye) have been without electricity for the last three days, while the radiology department has been facing power cuts for the last 18 days. Naimul Islam, relative of a patient, said that they can’t even go to the washroom at night due to lack of electricity.  “We don’t get proper treatment at the hospital. Still, we’ve to come here as we don’t have any other place to go. The hospital doesn’t even have electricity. I don’t know how the hospital is running without monitoring,” said Arafat Hossain Shaon, relative of another patient. Read: Nasrul Hamid under fire in Parliament for electricity crisis Wishing to be anonymous, a nurse of the hospital said that they can’t provide injections to the patients properly due to darkness at night. “We’re currently doing our work with the help of candles and charger lights. The hospital authority is building a gate spending crores of taka, which is unnecessary. The money should’ve been spent on fixing the electrical cables and ensuring constant supply of electricity through generators,” said the nurse. The nurse added that instead of building a gate, emphasis should be given on how to provide treatment to the patients more effectively. Dr HM Saiful Islam, director of the hospital, didn’t respond to the calls made by UNB to collect information about the electricity crisis. Read: No govt decision to stop supply of daytime electricity: Hasan Mahmud “The surgery wards and the radiology department don’t have electricity at this moment. Although founded in 1968, electricity lines of the hospital were never repaired. I think dilapidated electrical cables are the reason why power outage is happening at the hospital,” said Dr Moniruzzaman Shahin, assistant director (Administration) of SBMCH.

Consumers in the areas under Dhaka Electric Supply Company Limited (Desco) experienced load shedding for over three hours on Saturday while those in the areas under Dhaka Power Supply Company Limited (DPDC) saw no power cuts. According to official sources, a forced shutdown of a power plant in Ghorashal Power Station triggered such a huge load shedding in the Desco areas including Uttara, Gulshan, Baridhara, Bashundhara, Banani, Badda, Uttara khan, Dakkhin Khan, Agagaon, Mirpur, Kafrul, Kalayanpur, Khilkhet, Pallabi, Rupnagar and Tongi. “We had to go for more than three hours of load shedding in different spells as we have been receiving less supply than any other days due to the shutdown of a power station in Ghorashal”, said Kawsar Ameer Ali, managing director of Desco. He informed that Ghorashal power station is one of the major sources of power from which Desco receives power supply. “Following the shutdown of a power plant in Ghorashal station, power supply to Desco has come down to 750 MW on Saturday against the demand of 1038 MW,” the Desco chief executive told UNB. As a result, he said, the Desco had to go for about 278 MW of load shedding to manage the situation. Read: No load shedding in DPDC area this summer: Bikash Dewan Meanwhile, officials of the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) informed that 365 MW unit -7 of the Ghorashal power station went out of order at 4:49 am on Saturday triggering a huge shortage in power supply. Shamim Hasan, BPDB director, public relations, however, said the power supply situation was better on Saturday as there was projection of scheduled load shedding of 1242 MW while the projected generation was 12,758 MW against a demand of 14,000 MW. The DPDC in a message through its official website noted that there is no scheduled load shedding in its area which supplies electricity mainly south, south-east, south-west and central parts of Dhaka city. The government started  daily one hour area-based load-shedding across Bangladesh from Tuesday in a bid to tackle the ongoing power crisis.