Officials in Sri Lanka said a monkey in the wrong place at the wrong time was to blame for a power blackout that affected the entire nation.

At around 11:30am local time on Sunday, a rogue group of monkeys jumped into the Panadura Power Station in Sri Lanka, with one of them landing on a transmission line which caused a nationwide power ou

Sri Lanka has grappled with a struggling energy grid for years, and monkeys are making it worse. On Sunday at around 11:00 local time (12:30 AM EST), a nationwide blackout forced its 22 million residents to either turn to personal generators,

The island nation, where temperatures are above 30°C in most places, suffered a blackout from 11:30 am (local time) onwards. The impact on places like hospitals and schools was not immediately known

The power outage was caused by an emergency at the Panadura grid substation in the country’s Western Province, according to the CEB. Local media, citing Energy Minister Kumara Jayakody, reported that the outage was triggered by a group of monkeys that entered the substation and caused damage.

No more monkeys jumping on the power grid! A countrywide power outage that left many stuck without cool air during a sweltering hot day in Sri Lanka has been blamed on a rogue monkey who climbed into a power station south of the capital Colombo.

A monkey caused a major power outage in Sri Lanka, leading to scheduled 90-minute power cuts due to a breakdown at the Norochcholai coal power plant.