Entire country without power after monkey ‘comes into contact with transformer’

The entire nation of Sri Lanka is facing blackouts – and it’s all down to the actions of one cheeky monkey.

The island nation of 22million people is relying on generators to power hospitals and water purification plants.

Air conditioning units can no longer run, leaving residents sweating in temperatures of more than 30°C.

Engineers have scrambled to restore power across the island, prioritising facilities like hospitals, and some areas regained electricity within a few hours.

However some parts of the country, and households without their own generators, were still in the dark throughout the night.

The Sri Lankan energy minister has no doubt as to the cause of the energy crisis.

Kumara Jayakody said: ‘A monkey has come in contact with our grid transformer, causing an imbalance in the system.’

The Ceylon Electricity Board said the power cut was caused by an ’emergency’ at a substation south of Colombo, the country’s capital.

Local news outlets say engineers have been warning consecutive governments ‘for years’ to upgrade its power grid amid the risk of frequent blackouts.

An anonymous senior engineer was quoted in a Sri Lankan newspaper as saying: ‘The national power grid is in such a weakened state that frequent island-wide power outages may be expected if there is a disturbance in one of our lines.’

The blackout started at about 11am local time on Sunday, and residents are criticising the country’s infrastructure.

Mario Nawfal said on X: ‘A rogue monkey knocked out Sri Lanka’s entire power grid after triggering a total failure at a substation in Colombo.

‘One monkey = total chaos. Time to rethink infrastructure?’

The authorities have warned people to expect more power cuts over the next few days, after the outage caused a breakdown at the Norochcholai coal power plant.

This isn’t the first time Sri Lanka has faced widespread blackouts.

In 2022, a major economic crisis and fuel shortages forced rolling blackouts as authorities rationed electricity for up to 13 hours a day.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.