There was a nationwide power outage in Sri Lanka this past Sunday that left millions of citizens without electricity. The blame is being put squarely on the adorable little shoulders of a single monkey that allegedly caused a disturbance at a power station south of Colombo, the nation’s capital.
Sri Lankan energy minister Kumara Jayakody said that one monkey acting alone made contact with a grid transformer “causing an imbalance in the power system.” I don’t know the first thing about electrical engineering let alone power grids from which an entire nation gets its energy, but it feels like an entire nation’s power supply should not blink out of existence with the single touch of a monkey.
The Entire Nation Of Sri Lanka Lost Power Because Of A Monkey
The ensuing blackout could not have happened at a worse time as the nation was experiencing temperatures in the high 80s Fahrenheit with extremely high humidity. Power was slowly restored across the country, with areas that contained hospitals and other vital infrastructure prioritized before everything else.
Monkeys have been running amok in nearby Thailand of late, as the town of Lopburi in central Thailand recently saw its police station overrun by 200 wild monkeys. Thailand recently announced a plan to mass neuter its monkeys to reduce some of the chaos the animals have caused.
The post How a Monkey Cut the Power to the Entire Country of Sri Lanka appeared first on VICE.
