Sri Lanka faced a nationwide power outage over the weekend after a monkey entered a grid substation in the western city of Panadura, triggering an imbalance in the power system, according to the country's energy minister.
"A monkey has come in contact with our grid transformer, causing an imbalance in the system," Kumara Jayakody said, according to the local media.
Efforts to restore power were delayed due to low electricity demand on Sunday. Although the Ceylon Electricity Board had fully restored power by 6 p.m. local time (1230GMT), all three generators were automatically disconnected by its protocol system.
As demand increased after 6 p.m., some areas experienced further power cuts. To address the shortfall, authorities sourced electricity from thermal power plants and fully restored power by 9.45 p.m.
The Ceylon Electricity Board has announced that island-wide power cuts will be implemented on Monday and Tuesday. The outages will last for one and a half hours, occurring between 3.30 p.m. and 9.30 p.m., and will affect the entire island.
Island-wide power outages have occurred multiple times, including in March 2016, August 2020, and December 2021. The last outage, which took about six hours to restore, happened on Dec. 9, 2023.
