JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — Electricity failed across Jaffna at about 5 a.m. on Sunday after a brief spell of rain before dawn. Supply was not restored until about 12.30 p.m., roughly seven and a half hours later.
A consumer in Kokuvil was notified of the interruption at 7:15 a.m., more than two hours after the power went out. The text message said supply had been interrupted from 6:10 a.m. for "breakdown restoration" and would not be restored before noon. Residents said the power had gone out more than an hour before the time the message gave.
The outage was the latest in a series of unannounced interruptions that residents say has become routine in the northern peninsula, where supply has failed after relatively light rainfall.
Residents interviewed by the Jaffna Monitor said the problem had become noticeable over the past two years, under President Anura Kumara Dissanayake and his National People's Power government. They counted at least five or six unexpected interruptions in recent months, several after little more than a drizzle.
The outage also disrupted essential services across Jaffna. Hospitals were cut off from the main electricity supply and had to rely on backup generators, while petrol stations faced similar disruptions.
Electricity failures in Jaffna also affect water supplies. Much of the peninsula depends on electric pumps to draw water from wells or ground-level storage into rooftop tanks. When a blackout begins before dawn, households may have no opportunity to fill their tanks, leaving them without running water as well as electricity.
K. Panchalingam, a resident of Kokuvil, told the Jaffna Monitor that he normally pumps water into his rooftop tank at about 6 a.m. But on Sunday, he said, the electricity went out before he could do so, leaving his household without running water.
A doctor at a Jaffna hospital, who asked not to be named because he was not authorised to speak publicly, said the hospital lost its main electricity supply during the outage and had to rely on backup generators to keep essential services running.
The failures come months after a restructuring of the national electricity industry. In March, the government reorganised the Ceylon Electricity Board and transferred its functions to newly created state-owned companies. Distribution in Jaffna is now handled by Electricity Distribution Lanka (Pvt) Ltd. The government presented the change as a step toward a more efficient, accountable and reliable system.
Several residents compared the present situation with the economic crisis under former President Ranil Wickremesinghe, when fuel shortages and depleted foreign reserves left the electricity sector under severe strain. Interruptions then were communicated more predictably, they said.
Neither Electricity Distribution Lanka nor the Public Utilities Commission publishes figures on unplanned interruptions, so the perception cannot be tested against the record.
The cause of the recurring failures is unclear. It is not known whether vegetation on distribution lines, ageing equipment, transformer maintenance or some other weakness in the network is responsible.
The Jaffna Monitor asked Electricity Distribution Lanka to explain the cause of Sunday's outage, why notification reached Kokuvil more than two hours after supply was lost, and whether failures after rainfall point to a specific fault in the network. The company had not responded by the time of publication.
