Sri Lanka suffers nationwide blackout

The entire country of Sri Lanka was without power for more than eight hours on Sunday after a massive blackout.

President Maithripala Sirisena deployed the army in strategic locations along the country's electricity network to help in the recovery effort.

"We have informed the president about the situation and requested military protection in important places and the president has agreed to provide the security requested," Energy Minister Ranjith Siyambalapitiya said.


The Secretary of the Energy Ministry, Suren Batagoda, says the Defence Ministry has been asked for protection for around a hundred power plants.

The blackout, which started at 2:15pm Sunday local time and lasted till 10pm - in some places even up to 11:30pm - steeped the entire island in darkness, Chairman of state-owned Ceylon Electricity, Anura Wijepala, said.

Wijepala explained that the blackout was probably due to the explosion of a transformer at the Biyagama station near Colombo, for reasons that are still being investigated.

The government has been asked to help in determining whether the problem was weather-related or something else.

He did not rule out sabotage but said, "It is not likely" to be the cause.

"In my opinion our transmission system is very weak and we must review it," Wijepala said, noting that when there is such a problem it is "normal" to isolate the problem in such a way that it does not lead to a collapse of the entire system.

He stressed that with Sunday's blackout, all plants were disabled, including the most powerful Norochcholai plant in the northwest of the country, which means Sri Lanka will continue to face a power crisis for the next few days.