Blackout in Sri Lanka blamed on monkey

Admin

February 10, 2025
2 min read

A blackout that affected Sri Lanka has been blamed on a monkey that trespassed on a power station near the capital, Colombo. Power is gradually returning to the island nation and its 22 million people as medical facilities and water purification plants are prioritised.

“A monkey has come in contact with our grid transformer, causing an imbalance in the system,” Sri Lanka Energy Minister Kumara Jayakody told reporters.

The blackout began around 11:00 local time (05:30 GMT) on Sunday, 11th February. It forced many residents to rely on generators. Officials said that it could take hours for it to return.

People criticised the authorities on social media, and also made fun of the situation.

“A rogue monkey knocked out Sri Lanka’s entire power grid after triggering a total failure at a substation in Colombo,” one X user wrote. “One monkey = total chaos. Time to rethink infrastructure?” he added.

Another X user posted an illustration of a Hindu god called Hanuman with the face of a monkey. “Sri Lanka tasted monkey business in the past,” he wrote.

“Only in Sri Lanka can a group of monkeys fighting inside a power station cause an islandwide power outage,” editor-in-chief of local newspaper Daily Mirror Jamila Husain wrote.

In a report, the newspaper said that engineers had been warning the government “for years” to upgrade the nation’s power grid or face blackouts.

“The national power grid is in such a weakened state that frequent islandwide power outages maybe expected if there is a disturbance even in one of our lines,” an unnamed senior engineer was quoted saying by the newspaper.

Sri Lanka also saw widespread blackouts during an economic crisis back in 2022.

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[Image Credit: Mashriq]