by Neta Bar and News Agencies
Hospitals, communication and traffic grids, and the business sector rattled by frequent power cuts triggered by consumption surge attributed to sweltering heat. Government apologizes to Iranians for the outages.
 |
| Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei | File photo: Reuters |
Widespread electricity blackouts spark protests across Iranian cities over the weekend and continued on Tuesday, plunging the Islamic republic into chaos.
Power consumption surged over the past week, as a punishing heatwave, with temperatures exceeding 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) in some desert areas, has hit the country.
Electricity is heavily subsidized in Iran and the recent consumption
spike has been a cause for concern in Tehran. The London-based Persian
news outlet Iran International cited data from Iran's grid
management company saying that as of the early hours of Tuesday morning,
consumption rose to over 64,000 megawatts, 9,800 MW higher than the
same time last year, with daily usage of cooling systems pegged at
around 19,000 MW.
Gholamali Rakhshani-Mehr, an official with the Electricity Production, Transfer and Distribution Company of Iran, told the outlet that the country is now producing 60,000 MW of electricity per day, while consumption is 62,000 MW.
"June heatwaves are nothing new in Iran" but the 20% surge in consumption "is hard to explain," he noted.
Iranians began taking to the streets on Sunday night when a sudden blackout hit Tehran as well as other major cities on the heels of extended power cuts over the weekend.
While demonstrations on the ground were scant, small groups of protesters in the Iranian capital were chanting "Death to the dictator" and "Death to Khamenei" in reference to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Similar incidents took place in other cities across the Islamic republic. Social media posts showed crowds in Shar-e Rey near Tehran, Shiraz, Amol and elsewhere overnight.
The Iranian government apologized for the power cuts, which it has blamed on a severe drought and high demand.
President Hassan Rouhani explained in a televised addressed Tuesday morning that the drought meant most of the country's hydroelectric power plants were not operating, and that electricity consumption had surged as people used air conditioning to cope with the intense summer heat.
Opposition media outlets claimed that internet access and use has dropped sharply since the protest began and is lower than expected, even considering the frequent power outages.
The opposition believes that Tehran is trying to prevent an organized protest from forming over the blackouts.
Also on Tuesday, an explosion ripped through oil and gas pipelines at a pump house in Iran's southwest Tuesday, killing three oil workers and injuring four others, local media reported.
The blast struck the Einkhosh field some 500 kilometers (310 miles) southwest of Tehran, according to several Iranian news outlets. The condition of the injured workers was not immediately clear.
The reports did not specify the cause of the explosion, but many reports cited the harsh heatwave currently battering Iran.
Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh ordered an investigation into the cause of the accident and sent his condolences to the families of the victims
Such incidents are not uncommon in the country's aging oil and gas infrastructure, raising questions about worker safety at the sites. The facilities lack spare parts for repairs and suffer from poor maintenance as well as years of harsh American sanctions.
The sweltering summer heat, now exceeding 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) in some desert areas, has occasionally ignited fires at the sites.
Authorities said they would reroute oil from the affected field via pipelines to other facilities in oil-rich, southern Khuzestan province.
An Iranian state-owned warehouse west of Tehran was engulfed by flames on Monday following a mysterious explosion at the site, Iranian media reported.
The facility where the fire broke out is in proximity to the factories of several major Iranian companies.
Later reports on Iranian state media said the incident was the result of an electrical fire. The Iranian Students News Agency hedged that the blaze was sparked when materials held in the warehouse, described as "foods, home appliances, and cosmetics," caught fire over the extreme heatwave in Iran.
Monday's incident was the latest in a series of inexplicable blasts and malfunctions plaguing Iranian state-owned facilities. The Islamic republic has blamed Israel for many of these incidents.
Neta Bar and News Agencies
Source: https://www.israelhayom.com/2021/07/06/protesters-chant-death-to-khamenei-as-massive-blackouts-plunge-iran-into-chaos/
No comments:
Post a Comment