The entire country in Sri Lanka faces power outages due to the behavior of a cheeky monkey.
The island nation, with 22 million people, is relying on generators to provide hospitals and water purification plants.
The air conditioning unit can no longer operate, causing residents to sweat at temperatures above 30°C.
Engineers have scrambled to restore power across the island, prioritizing facilities such as hospitals and some areas to restore power within a few hours.
However, some parts of the country, as well as families without their own generators, remain in darkness throughout the night.
The Sri Lankan energy minister has no doubts about the causes of the energy crisis.
“A monkey contacted our grid transformer, causing the system to be imbalanced,” said Energy Minister Kumara Jayakody of the cause of the outage.
The Ceylon Electric Power Commission said the cuts were caused by an “emergency” at a substation south of the country’s capital, Colombo.
Local news media said engineers have been warning the government to “for years” to escalate its frequent power outage risk to escalate its power grid.
An anonymous senior engineer was quoted in a newspaper in Sri Lanka as saying: “The National Power Grid is in such a weakened state that one of our lines has been disturbed and there may be frequent power outages in the range.”
The power outage began at 11 a.m. local time on Sunday, February 9, and residents criticized the country’s infrastructure.
Mario Nawfal said on X: “A rogue monkey knocked down all the power grid in Sri Lanka after triggering the complete failure of the Colombo substation.
“A monkey = overall chaos. Is it time to rethink infrastructure?”
Authorities warn people that they expect to cut more power in the next few days after the power outage, causing the Norochcholai coal power plant to fail.
