Nationwide Power Cut? Blame it on a monkey

A playful monkey curiously holds a lit candle, its eyes gleaming with mischief against a warm backdrop.

What? A nationwide power cut

When? Sunday 9th February 2025, 11:00 local time (05:30 GMT)

Where? Sri Lanka

How? A monkey

Impact? Nationwide

A nationwide blackout in Sri Lanka was blamed on a monkey that got into a power station.

Energy Minister Kumara Jayakody told BBC reporters "A monkey has come in contact with our grid transformer, causing an imbalance in the system".

Read about the incident on BBC's website here.

Incidents like these should, or at least I hope, make you question "What would happen if there was a power cut where I live?". In developing countries like Sri Lanka, the occurrence of local power cuts are frequent enough that the majority of people can survive without power; but would you be able to?

Take a moment to think about the effects of a nationwide power cut in your country? The effect on vital services like sophisticated telecommunications networks, transport systems, emergency services, health and safety systems and environmental services like water treatment?

The fallout would be damaging to say the least.

So what can I do? You may be asking yourself.

You can start off by decentralising the services you depend on. That's the simple answer. Think about the services you depend on, and diversify those services so there's some form of backup option. This applies to all things, not just data, including food, water purification and any other services that you recognise as having a single point of failure.

If you'd like help doing this, we provide a data drive with more than 200GB worth of resourceful information to help you get set up.

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Authored by Miya Mano, last updated on 11th February 2025.