Millions of Pakistanis were left without electricity for the second time in three months after a grid failure on Monday, affecting nearly all parts of the country.

In Rawalpindi, homeware trader Muhammad Iftikhar Sheikh, 71, said he was unable to demonstrate electronic products to browsing customers.

“The customers never buy without testing first,” he said. “All of us are sitting idle.”

Schools mostly continued either in the dark or using battery-powered lighting.

A shop owner in Karachi told AFP he feared his entire dairy stock would spoil without refrigeration.

Printer Khurrum Khan, 39, said orders were piling up because of the blackout.Unreliable power is “a permanent curse which our governments have failed to overcome”, he complained.

Header image: A man sits outside his shop during a country-wide power breakdown in Karachi on January 23. — Reuters