Photos: Blackout as second major grid breakdown hits Pakistan

Islamabad: Pakistan's government said it was scrambling to restore power to millions of people on Monday after a breakdown in the grid triggered the worst electricity outage in months and highlighted the weak infrastructure of the heavily indebted nation.

Volunteers of the Edhi Foundation, a non-profit social welfare programme, work at a communication and control room during a country-wide power breakdown in Karachi, Pakistan.

Energy Minister Khurram Dastgir told reporters an inquiry had been launched into the outage, which he had said was caused by a voltage surge. "We have faced some hurdles but we will overcome these hurdles, and will restore the power," he added.

The outage is the second major grid failure in three months, and adds to the blackouts that Pakistan's nearly 220 million people suffer on an almost daily basis.

Analysts and officials blame these power problems on the ageing electricity network, which like much of the national infrastructure, desperately needs an upgrade the government says it can ill afford.

The International Monetary Fund has bailed out Pakistan five times in the last two decades. Its latest bailout tranche, however, is stuck due to differences with the government over a programme review that should have been completed in November.

Schools, hospitals, homes and offices across swathes of Pakistan have been without power since around 7 am local time (0200 GMT) on a winter's day where temperatures are forecast to fall to around 4 degrees Celsius (39ADEGF) in the capital Islamabad and 8 degrees Celsius (46ADEGF) in financial hub Karachi.

Many people also have no running water because there was no power to the pumps. "People are suffering badly from this power cut," said Sagar Pahuja, a water and sanitation officer at the municipality of Jacobabad, a southern city with daily scheduled power cuts.

Earlier, Dastgir told Reuters that supplies were being partially restored from the north to the south and that the grid should be fully functioning by 10 pm (1700 GMT). It also took hours to restore power after the last major outage.

The outage hit Internet and mobile phone services, the telecoms regulator said. Several companies and hospitals said they had switched to back-up generators, but disruptions remained.