Power Outage Grips Turkey

A power outage gripped several cities in Turkey. Turkey’s Electricity Distribution Company (TEİAŞ) announced that the outage occurred due to a system failure. 

12:15pm (GMT+2): Energy Minister Taner Yıldız said the following: “Insufficient energy supplies is out of question. It might be related to connection lines or an issue called maneuver.”

12:00pm: PM Ahmet Davutoğlu said the following: “A crisis desk has been established by Energy Ministry. We believe there is a problem with connecting lines. We are considering every possibility. We are investigating whether it might be a terrorist attack." 

11:45am: Energy Ministry officials told Hürriyet newspaper: “First indications show that the problem might have occurred somewhere in the western suppliers. All resources have been dedicated to resolve the issue.”

11:30am: TEİAŞ officials announced that the outage took place at 10:36am local time due to an issue in the connecting lines. “A technical analysis has been launched. We are working to provide power as soon as we can,” they said.

10:40am: Following the outage, Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality announced that metro lines have been suspended.

While an official statement has not been made, it was reported that 45 out of 81 cities in Turkey have been affected. (BK/BM)

* Click here to read the article in Turkish.