‘Total chaos’: Monkey blamed for nationwide power cut in Sri Lanka
GuardianFeb 08
The Facts
Sri Lanka's Energy Minister Kumara Jayakody has said that a monkey caused a nationwide power outage on Sunday — affecting the nation's 22M residents — when it made contact with a grid transformer at the Panadura Power Station south of Colombo.
The blackout began around 11:30 a.m. local time and lasted approximately seven hours. Power was gradually restored by prioritizing medical facilities and water purification plants before complete restoration around 6:00 p.m.
The incident caused a breakdown at the Norochcholai coal power plant, leading authorities to announce scheduled power cuts for the following days. The plant's three generators require approximately four days to restart.
The Spin
Narrative A
The power outage highlights critical infrastructure vulnerabilities in Sri Lanka's electrical grid system, demonstrating how a single point of failure can cascade into a nationwide crisis affecting millions of citizens and essential services. The current government must upgrade the power grid, or Sri Lanka will face frequent blackouts.
Narrative B
The incident may be symptomatic of broader wildlife management challenges. Sri Lanka faces growing conflicts between expanding human settlements and a booming monkey population. With the endemic toque macaque population increasingly turning to scavenging food from human habitats, the monkeys are raising the risks of further damage to infrastructure.
