Colombo, August 17 (newsin.asia) The whole of Sri Lanka suffered a sudden and longish power breakdown on Monday from 12.35 onwards due to a transmission failure in the Kerawalapitiya Grid Substation. By 21.35 hrs power was back in more than 75% of the island, but completely normalcy was restored only on Tuesday morning, the Ceylon Electricity Board said.
With the Minister of Power Dullas Alahaperuma saying that it would take several hours to restore power, offices and shops which did not have generators began to close and the roads were clogged by vehicles heading homewards. The jam was made worse by the non-functioning of traffic lights.
The prevailing power outage also resulted in the disruption of water supply to several areas in the country as pumps could not be operated.
Residents said that the last time such an island-wide sudden and long power cut was experienced was in 2016.
Alarmed by the incident, Minister Alahapperuma ordered the Power Ministry Secretary to submit a report and appoint a committee to go into it in-depth.
(A candle-lit shop in Colombo. Photo credit: Xinhua/Tang Lu)