Since Wednesday, Sri Lanka has been cutting electricity across the country for ten hours a day due to a slowdown in hydroelectric power plants and a dire fuel shortage.
The island of 22 million is going through its worst economic crisis since its independence in 1948 due to a lack of foreign exchange to pay for imports.
The power supplier, a state-owned monopoly company, announced that the power cut would go from seven hours a day to ten hours a day due to a lack of fuel to power the thermal generators.
More than 40 percent of Sri Lanka’s electricity comes from hydropower, but water levels in most reservoirs have plummeted due to lack of rainfall, authorities explained. As a result, most of the electricity is produced with coal and oil. These two commodities are imported in limited quantities because the country has insufficient foreign exchange for paying for them.
At the same time, the state-owned Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) announced that no diesel would be sold in the country for at least two days. CPC asked those waiting at the gas stations to leave and only return after the imported diesel had been distributed. As a result, the price of petrol has risen by 92 percent since the beginning of this year, and that of diesel by 76 percent.
Many hospitals have postponed non-emergency surgical procedures, and supermarkets have had to ration basic foodstuffs such as rice, sugar and powdered milk.