Pakistani Power Back After Mass Outage

Pakistan's national power company says electricity has been restored across the country after an apparent rebel attack on a key power line left some 80 percent of the country without electricity.

Officials said the power failure began after midnight on January 25 when a transmission line connected to the national grid was damaged in an explosion carried out by militants in the southwestern Baluchistan Province, which has been wracked for years by a separatist insurgency.

Power was reportedly out in major cities, including Islamabad, Karachi, and Lahore.

The power failure came as a fuel crisis grips Pakistan, forcing Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to cancel his trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Reports from Pakistan were calling the latest outage one of the worst the country has experienced.

Based on reporting by AFP, Pakistan Today, and AP