Sri Lanka Faces Nationwide Power Cut Due to Sub-Station Emergency

The island nation’s infrastructure struggles to cope as engineers scramble to restore electricity following an unexpected sub-station failure.

Sri Lanka has plunged into a nationwide blackout, beginning at approximately 11:30 local time (06:00 GMT), forcing hospitals and other critical establishments to depend on generators for their electricity needs. The Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) has stated that the outage was triggered by an incident at a sub-station and affirmed that staff are working diligently to remedy the situation.

Energy Minister Kumara Jayakody attributed the failure to a unique cause—a monkey that allegedly interfered with a grid transformer, disrupting the electrical system, according to reports from AFP. The minister confirmed that engineers are on-site to expedite the restoration of power across the country.

In the wake of this outage, healthcare facilities and businesses located in the nation of approximately 22 million residents are resorting to backup power sources such as generators or inverters to maintain operations. The circumstances mirror the widespread blackouts that plagued the country during its severe economic crisis in 2022, highlighting ongoing vulnerabilities in Sri Lanka’s energy infrastructure.