Sri Lanka extended its power cuts for the third consecutive day on Thursday as authorities worked to restore full capacity to the national grid.
The move follows a weekend blackout triggered by a monkey, which left the island’s 22 million residents without power.
Power Minister, Kumara Jayakody, explained that Sunday’s six-hour outage occurred after a monkey disrupted a grid station in a Colombo suburb.
No power cuts were imposed on Wednesday due to a public holiday in Sri Lanka.
According to the minister, the animal came into contact with a transformer at the station, causing a nationwide blackout. However, details about the monkey’s condition were not immediately available.
In a statement, the Ceylon Electricity Board announced that one-hour power cuts would be imposed from 6 p.m. (12:30 GMT) to manage peak demand hours.
The outage also affected the country’s only 900 MW coal-fired power plant, which was forced into safe mode.
“All efforts are being made to restore the grid to full capacity, but power cuts will be implemented to manage peak demand hours in the night,” the CEB said.
On Monday and Tuesday, authorities imposed 90-minute power cuts to manage electricity demand.
Meanwhile, the energy ministry has launched an investigation into the incident.
