Sri Lanka: Minister blames monkey for nationwide power cut

On social media, people criticised the authorities while making fun of the incident.

“A rogue monkey knocked out Sri Lanka’s entire power grid after triggering a total failure at a substation in Colombo,” X user Mario Nawfal wrote.

“One monkey = total chaos. Time to rethink infrastructure?” he added.

Another X user, Sreeni R, posted an illustration of the monkey god Hanuman, who according to the Hindu epic Ramayana, set Sri Lanka on fire during a war with the demon king Ravana who ruled the country.

“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,” wrote Jamila Husain, editor-in-chief of local newspaper Daily Mirror.

In a report published on Monday, the newspaper said engineers have been warning consecutive governments “for years” to upgrade its power grid or face frequent 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,” it quoted an unnamed senior engineer saying.

Sri Lanka experienced widespread blackouts during its economic crisis in 2022.