Blackout in Egypt as country suddenly loses 50% of its electric power

Egyptians suffered massive power outages on Thursday. The six hour outage, which affected most cities, lead to a halt in hospital services, subway lines and TV transmission, despite the government’s assertion that the power outage problem would be solved by the end of this year.

Thursday’s outages amounted to 50 percent of the country’s power generation, the Associated Press said.

According to AP, “the mass outage on Thursday was far more severe and wide-ranging than any of the previous cuts.”

The months long power outage crisis is a result of the government’s inability to import enough fuel to run the country’s power plants, the outdated and poorly maintained equipment, alongside accumulating debts owed to foreign oil companies.

The minister of electricity Mohamed Shaker blamed a “technical error” for the loss of 9000 megawatts and the power outage in most governorates.

The power outage comes three months after the election of former army chief Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi as president one year after he toppled the democratically elected president Mohamed Morsi in a military coup.