Sri Lanka : Over 500,000 damaged power connections restored

Dec 02, Colombo: Power and Energy Minister Ranjith Siyambalapitiya says that around half of the power outages due to bad weather conditions has been restored.

Addressing a press conference at the Power and energy Ministry on Friday, the Minister said 1,000,700 power outages have been reported due to the adverse weather with heavy winds that battered the island's southern, western and central parts on Wednesday night.

The Minister commending the utility workers said a massive disaster that could have happened with power outages was averted thanks to the dedication of the Ceylon Electricity Board workers.

The CEB workers worked throughout the day on Thursday and restored the power to over 200,000 places and today the number restored has been brought up to 500,000.

Minister Siyambalapitiya expressing his views further said amidst the prevailing adverse weather conditions, the breakdown of electricity was reduced by 50 percent. He said the main problem now is that the affected areas are still receiving rains, which hamper the repair work.

He said 20 additional teams drawn from unaffected areas have been deployed for the repairs.

The Minister said he expects to restore power to most of the areas by the end of Friday.