A massive power outage in Turkey on Tuesday
crippled services in over 40 cities, forcing planes to divert and
affecting train services, local media reported. The outages on Tuesday
led to the cancellation of the Istanbul metro’s services and train lines
to the capital of Ankara. A number of social media posts also indicated
that flights had been cancelled or delayed.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said authorities were
investigating all possible causes, and did not rule out the possibility
of a terror attack, Hurriyet Daily News reported. Energy Minister Taner Yildiz told media
that power had been restored to about 80 percent of all affected areas,
Reuters reported, and that electricity would soon "be completely
restored."
The country’s energy ministry released a statement saying
its main distribution lines were affected, likely originating somewhere
in the western Aegean region, Hurriyet
reported. It added that the
blackout is Turkey’s biggest in 15 years.
"Our main target right now is to restore the network. This
is not an incident that we see frequently," Yildiz had said earlier on
Turkish television, according
to Reuters. "Whether or not terrorism is a high possibility or a low
one I can’t say at this stage. I can’t say either whether it is a cyber
attack," he told reporters.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration,
Turkey’s power consumption has risen rapidly over the past few years,
as the country has experienced solid economic growth. It is also a
critical region for energy transit, moving oil and gas from Russia, the
Caspian region, and from the Middle East to Europe.
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