Mar 6, 2023 - Here’s why 230 million people are affected by blackouts anyway
In January 2023, much of Pakistan’s population of nearly 230 million people plunged into darkness, bringing widespread disruption to people and industries for almost 24 hours. “If you go to our government hospitals – which didn’t have back-up facilities – or field hospitals, or small nursing homes, they had to stop all their services,” said Dr. Shayan Ansari, a surgeon at a private hospital in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad. A similar incident struck last October. Meanwhile, smaller blackouts regularly hit cities and villages for several hours daily. But the problem is not energy supply.