According to the government’s power utility firm, a failure in the country’s electrical infrastructure prompted widespread blackouts on Tuesday afternoon, leaving at least 130 million people in Bangladesh without power.
According to the Power Development Board, the unexpected blackout affected over 80% of the nation just after 2:00 pm local time (or 8:00 GMT) and spread over the whole country.
Shamim Ahsan, a spokesman for the agency, stated to the media that “the remainder of the country is without power” with the exception of a few sites in the northwest of Bangladesh.
According to Ahsan, there are at least 130 million people who do not have access to energy, and it is yet unknown what caused the problem.
“The matter is currently being looked into,” he added, adding that a problem with the technology was most likely to blame for the incident.
On Facebook, the junior technology minister Zunaid Palak announced that the electricity would be restored by eight o’clock in the evening in the capital city of Dhaka, which is home to more than 22 million people.
Because of the rise in the price of electricity worldwide that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Bangladesh has been experiencing a significant power problem over the past few months.
The South Asian nation is having trouble meeting the demand for energy due to its inability to pay for sufficient quantities of imported diesel and gas. This has led to an increase in public outrage over the prolonged blackouts.
Around seventy percent of Bangladesh was left without electricity for close to ten hours the previous time Bangladesh was hit by a significant unplanned blackout, which occurred in November of 2014.