A nationwide power failure struck Sri Lanka on Sunday morning, leaving the entire island without electricity due to a cascading grid collapse. The Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) confirmed the outage and assured that restoration efforts were underway.
“We are working tirelessly to bring the system back online following the blackout,” the CEB said in an official statement, apologizing for the inconvenience caused. While the exact cause remains unknown, previous incidents have been linked to grid instability from high solar power generation, transmission line failures, or large coal plant shutdowns. However, in this case, utility sources ruled out generator tripping as the cause.
An unexpected factor under investigation is a possible transmission line failure caused by a troop of monkeys, according to an informed source. Sundays typically have lower electricity demand, but strong sunlight between 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM can make frequency management difficult, increasing the risk of cascading failures. In previous blackouts, repeated re-energization attempts have further complicated grid restoration. During a similar nationwide failure in 2020, full power was only restored after sunset as engineers struggled to control frequency surges beyond 51 kHz.
Authorities continue to investigate the root cause of the latest failure, while engineers work to restore power across the country.
