UPDATE: Power Supply has been Disrupted in Several Areas Across the Island

COLOMBO (News 1st): Minister of Energy, Anura Karunathilaka, says that efforts to restore the islandwide power supply, which has been disrupted, are now underway.

He stated that a failure in one of the units at the Upper Kotmale Hydropower Plant is suspected to have caused the situation.

Although a failure at the Kotmale power plant is suspected, the exact cause of the outage remains unclear. Authorities are investigating whether the incident triggered the wider system failure or whether other factors were involved.

He urged rooftop solar panel owners to temporarily switch off their systems, saying this would help stabilise the grid and speed up the restoration process.

The minister said electricity could be restored to some areas within approximately an hour, but a definite timeline for other  areas has not yet been confirmed.