(ETH) – Pakistan has been left in the dark after reports of its national power grid failing, leaving nearly the entire country without power. According to RT News, officials there are blaming a mysterious “plunge in the frequency,” causing conspiracy theories to quickly spread.
“A countrywide blackout has been caused by a sudden plunge in the frequency in the power transmission system,” Pakistani power minister Omar Ayub Khan wrote on Twitter, shortly after the country was plunged into darkness before midnight on Saturday.
The report revealed that Pakistanis quickly shared photos of their blacked-out cities and towns on social media. The power minister advised that repair crews had been dispatched to power stations and urged citizens to remain calm and that power would be restored to Islamabad within three hours, and to the rest of the country by Sunday morning.
According to the report, it is clearly not known yet what the source of the power outage was, but Khan suggested that fog or an “uptake issue” from the Tarbela Dam hydroelectric plant could have been responsible. Despite this other theories quickly spread in the darkness with some even suggesting that a coup against Prime Minister Imran Khan. Others warned of an impending attack by India.
