Sri Lanka’s every corner sunk in darkness, electricity lost for seven hours

The whole of Sri Lanka sank into darkness on Monday due to failure of Sri Lanka’s major power plant.

There was lightning in the entire country for about seven hours.

Energy Minister Dallas Alahaperuma said that power supply at the power house at Keravalpitiya located on the outskirts of the capital Colombo stalled power supply across the country on Monday.

After almost seven hours, power supply was restored in the capital Colombo but some parts of the country are still in darkness.

This has been the second biggest disruption since March 2016 when the entire country has been in darkness for almost seven hours. Earlier, in March 2016, electricity supply in the entire country was stalled for about eight hours.

The public utility regulator says that the reasons why this problem occurred will be investigated and the government’s monopoly Ceylon Electricity Board will be given three days to explain the reasons in this regard.

There was an atmosphere of chaos in the country due to the power supply coming to a standstill.

Neither the traffic signals were working on the streets of Colombo nor the street lights.

In such a situation, the police had to struggle a lot in handling people. Lack of electricity also affected the water supply. However, there was a system of power-back-up in hospitals and other important places. In most places people were seen using generators.

The airport is already closed due to the corona virus epidemic. Sri Lanka supplies more than half of its total electricity demand through thermal power.

The capacity of the power house at Keravalpitiya is 300 MW, which supplies 12% of the country’s energy.