The worst power failure in Pakistan’s history, and likely one of the worst in the history of electricity, started at midnight Sunday, when unidentified rebels destroyed a single power line, and the two pylons connecting it, knocking the entire grid of Pakistan offline for many hours.
Officials said the attack created a “backward surge which affected the system” and cut power to some 140 million Pakistanis. The electricity was restored by mid-morning.
Power Ministry officials said this was the third time in the last two weeks that the electricity grid was attacked in Balochistan. There was no report of major outages from the other incidents.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif campaigned on a promise to increase electricity infrastructure nationwide, reducing the constant outages. That the whole grid was brought down with relative ease suggests little progress was made in this regard.
I would be very, very surprised to find out that the US power grid is any safer against saboteurs. All the talk in the US after 9/11 about the security of the grid and the talk about making the grid more secure and reliable, like the Pakistanis, was just that…talk. The nationwide neglect of the US infrastructure will eventually come back to bite us. All the money that has been spent on ME adventurism and the "spreading of democracy" in places that don't want it could have rebuilt America's roads and bridges and other public services.
The meltdown that was portrayed in Atlas Shrugged is well on the way to becoming reality. When society has no problem paying a misogynistic footballer multi-millions of dollars but can't find the money to repair roads and bridges or build a school or health clinic then it's time to re-examine our priorities.