At around 11:30am local time on Sunday, a rogue group of monkeys jumped into the Panadura Power Station in Sri Lanka, with one of them landing on a transmission line which caused a nationwide power outage
An island that’s home to 22million people was left off-grid after a nationwide blackout was triggered at an electrical power station – by an intruding group of monkeys.
At around 11:30am local time on Sunday, a rogue group of monkeys jumped into the Panadura Power Station in Sri Lanka, with one of them landing on a transmission line sparking the power outage. And while electricity teams initially said the cause of the power cut at the sub-station south of the capital Colombo was unknown, Sri Lanka’s Energy Minister later confirmed the blame lay with the group of animals.
Kumara Jayakody told local reporters: “A monkey has come into contact with our grid transformer, causing an imbalance in the system. Engineers are attending to it to try and restore the service as soon as possible.”
Following the black out, medical facilities and water purification plants were prioritised on the island nation as authorities desperately scrambled to restore services. And after the outage caused a breakdown at a local power plant in Norochcholai, it has been announced that more blackouts will follow.
The Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL) has approved the Ceylon Electricity Board’s (CEB) request for scheduled power cuts under four categories today and on Tuesday. A one-and-a-half-hour power cut will be implemented across the country between 3:30pm and 9:30pm local time
Sri Lanka relies heavily on coal and oil to power a large portion of its electrical output. Hydropower is the island’s main source of energy, with coal plants such as the one in Norochcholai still heavily relied upon. The island struggled to import stocks of oil and coal after using all of their back up reserve stocks following another outage in 2022.
And despite the energy ministry apologising for the chaos caused by the monkey, many have taken to social media to express their disbelief over the incident. Desuni Athauda, a journalist for WION news posted to X, saying: “Sri Lanka’s ability to go global in the most unique ways is almost an art.”
The Managing Editor of the Colombo Gazette said: “If Sri Lanka’s entire power supply can be knocked off by a monkey falling on the system at a sub-station well then you really do have a problem.”
And Twitter/X user Mario Nawfal wrote: “A rogue monkey knocked out Sri Lanka’s entire power grid after triggering a total failure at a substation in Colombo. One monkey = total chaos. Time to rethink infrastructure?”
