Lebanon is facing a country-wide power outage that is likely to continue for the next few days. The middle-eastern country has no generated electricity and it lost all of its power after the country's two biggest power stations went down due to fuel shortage.
"The Lebanese power network completely stopped working at noon today, and it is unlikely that it will work until next Monday, or for several days," the government officials said to Reuters news agency.
Most of the people in the country use private generators which run on diesel but that too is falling short in supply.
The al Zahrani and the Deir Ammar power stations stopped working after diesel supplies were exhausted, and energy production dropped to below 200 megawatts. The affected Deir Ammar and Zahrani power stations had been providing 40 percent of Lebanon’s electricity.
The facilities reportedly ran out of fuel because the government lacks foreign currency to pay foreign energy suppliers.
Lebanon is a poor nation and is facing an economic crisis. The country had relied heavily on energy imports to meet domestic demand, however, the ongoing financial liquidity crisis has affected the nation very heavily since August 2019 and later by the Covid pandemic in 2020. The Lebanese currency has sunk by 90% since 2019.
(with inputs from sources)
