The Iraqi Ministry of Electricity said – today, Saturday – that the national electricity system began to gradually return to work, hours after it was completely cut off throughout the country as a result of a “sabotage act” that targeted the “Salah al-Din Thermal – Haditha” transmission line with explosive devices, in addition to a fire breaking out at the station. Al-Bakr Al-Tahwalia in Basra, south of the country.
The ministry added, in a statement, that a number of obstetric units and separate lines returned to work and were connected to the national network again after it was disconnected from it as a result of the fire that affected the Al-Bakr station, stressing that work is underway to restart the rest of the units and transmission lines during the coming hours.
In a related context, the Minister of Electricity, Ziyad Ali Fadel, ordered the formation of a committee to investigate the accident and the targets, which he described as sabotage, which affected power transmission lines and towers in Salah al-Din Governorate.
Iraq – which has a population of 43 million people – lives on a daily basis, frequent power outages that may reach 10 hours, and the matter is made worse by high temperatures up to 50 degrees Celsius during the summer.
The frequent power outages in Iraq are due to the deterioration of the infrastructure, which Iraq suffers from due to decades of conflicts, corruption and mismanagement.
Although it is an oil-rich country, power stations in Iraq depend heavily on gas imported from Iran, which cuts off supplies frequently, adding to the frequent blackouts.
To fill the shortage, some resort to the use of electric generators, which are sometimes not sufficient to secure daily needs, such as operating air conditioners.
To treat power outages, Iraqi stations need to produce 32,000 megawatts per day, but production is still far from that, even if it sometimes reached 26,000 megawatts, according to the authorities.
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2023-07-29 17:37:58
