Pakistan has been hit by what appears to be a nationwide blackout, leaving more than 200 million people without electricity, officials and residents said. It is not clear how long it may last.

The blackout began at 11:45 p.m. on Saturday when power failures were reported in all major cities, including Karachi, Islamabad, Lahore, Peshawar, and Rawalpindi. It appeared to be across the nation.

Senator Faisal Javed Khan said the blackout was “countrywide” and caused by a sudden frequency drop in the power transmission system. “We are told that the technical fault will be restored shortly, Insha’Allah,” he said.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Energy said the frequency drop resulted from a “fault” at Guddu at 11:41 p.m. “Power plants have been shut down due to falling frequencies,” the ministry said.

An hours-long blackout hit Pakistan back in January 2015, leaving up to 80 percent of the country without power. If Saturday’s blackout is confirmed to be nationwide, it would be one of the biggest in world history.

But as the country plunged into darkness on Saturday, Twitter was abuzz with reactions and possible theories. Pakistan can downplay the success of India’s surgical strikes all it wants, but the fact that one power outage has caused panic across the country about a possible martial law or Indian attack paints a different story.

Only recently, a former Pakistans diplomat claimed that India killed 300 terrorists in the Balakot airstrikes that took place on February 26, 2019, in retaliation for the Pulwama terror attack, in which the lives of 40 CRPF jawans were lost. Pakistan Army, however, has maintained that there were no casualties from the airstrike.

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