Last Time Hanuman Lit Up Lanka, This Time the Monkey Plunged All into Darkness!

In an unexpected turn of events, Sri Lanka is grappling with extended power cuts for the third consecutive day following a nationwide blackout triggered by an unlikely culprit - a monkey. The incident, which occurred on Sunday, February 11, 2025, has left millions without electricity and sparked a flurry of efforts to restore the country's power grid.

Energy Minister Kumara Jayakody reported that the outage began around 11:30 AM local time when a monkey came into contact with a grid transformer at a substation in a southern Colombo suburb. The animal's misadventure caused an imbalance in the system, leading to a cascading failure that affected the entire island nation.

As temperatures soared above 86°F, households and businesses across Sri Lanka found themselves without power for hours. The Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) prioritized restoring electricity to essential services such as hospitals and water purification facilities. However, many areas remained in the dark well into the night.

The incident has highlighted the vulnerability of Sri Lanka's aging energy infrastructure, with experts long warning about the risks of such disruptions. It also brings attention to the country's ongoing struggle with an overpopulation of toque macaque monkeys, estimated at around 3 million.

As of February 14, 2025, the CEB announced that one-hour power interruptions would be enforced starting at 6 PM to manage peak demand. The energy ministry has launched an investigation into the outage, while engineers work tirelessly to restore full capacity to the grid.

This bizarre incident serves as a stark reminder of the delicate balance between nature and infrastructure, leaving many Sri Lankans to wonder if their power supply is truly monkey-proof.

Source: CNN, Reuters, YouTube