The electrical infrastructure there is in disrepair. In the middle of a scorching summer, a fire caused a widespread power outage in Iraq on Saturday July 29. “The electrical network experienced a total shutdown on Saturday at 12:40 p.m. (11:40 a.m. in Paris) due to a fire that affected a transmission station in Basra province”, announced the Ministry of Electricity. The incident caused “suspension of transmission lines” between the southern and central regions and shut down production plants, according to the ministry.
The spokesperson for the Ministry of Electricity specified that the outage concerned “all of Iraq”. For his part, Minister Ziad Ali Fadel called for the formation of a “investigative committee” For “determine the causes of the fire” source of the failure. “Rapid work is underway (…) to gradually restart production plants and transmission lines”added the ministry, specifying that the network will be “back to normal in the next few hours”.