Lights out in Tunisia

A nationwide power cut hit Tunisia for a two-hour period, reports Asharq Al-Awsat and agencies, September 20.

STEG, the country’s state electricity company, stated on September 20 that it is still unclear as to why blackouts occurred.

The public company was established in 1962, with the ambition of producing natural gas and electricity on Tunisian soil.

International news outfit, Reuters noted that Tunisia’s Interior Minister, Kamal Feki, went to the powerplant in Rades, a harbour city situated around 10 kilometers southeast of the capital, Tunis, to investigate possible reasons behind the outage.

Many have said that a 3.8 magnitude earthquake striking Tunisia was the reason behind the power cuts.

The quake hit two of the North African country’s coastal cities, Monastir, and Sousse on the same day that the blackouts happened. The National Insitute of Meteorology recorded the seismic activity at 03:35 (local time).

No major damages or casualties have been recorded as of yet.

Since July, amid heatwaves, vast swathes of natural disasters have struck North Africa.

Wildfires raged through multiple regions of Algeria in late July, killing 34 and forcing around 1,500 people in the vicinity to be evacuated. The fires also spread to Tunisia’s border town of Melloula.

This month, a 6.8 magnitude quake hit Morocco’s central region, leading to the deaths of 3,000 people and 5,600 injuries.

On September 11, Libya suffered flooding as a result of two dams collapsing in Derna. This caused tens of thousands of deaths and the displacement of around 30,000 people.

Asharq Al-Awsat/ Reuters

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