Most of Western Libya suffered a total electricity blackout last night as the General Electricity Company of Libya (GECOL) reported that Zawia Power Station suffered a technical fault. The Zawia fault set off a domino effect on other power stations which explains breadth of the power blackout.
Social media reports had said there was an explosion at about 10 pm prior to the blackout, but unofficial video footage of GECOL personnel speaking to inquiring members of the public assured that there was no military attack on the power station.
The Ambulance and Emergency Service visited the plant and put out a video assuring that there was no attack-related explosion, as was first feared.
GECOL very quickly put out a statement that power was slowly being returned to the western grid. Several areas have since reported that some power has indeed returned.
GECOL added ‘‘specialized technical teams have started their work to determine the causes of the explosion that occurred at the Al-Harsha power station, and work to determine the technical circumstances of it.
The company reassures citizens that work is underway to address the outage, and the process of restoring power has already started gradually, and the supply is expected to return to normal in a short time.
The company apologizes to citizens for any power outage or disruption, stressing that its teams will continue to work until the network is fully stabilized and the supply returns to normal.’’