A major power cut hit large areas of Turkey yesterday, shutting down public transport systems, provoking huge traffic jams, grounding flights and causing blackouts in schools and hospitals.
The government said it was investigating the reasons behind what has been the worst nationwide power outage in 15 years and refused to rule out the possibility that it had been the victim of an intentional attack.
Of Turkey’s 81 provinces, 49 were confirmed to have been affected, from the country’s border with Greece to those with Iran and Iraq.
“Every possibility, including a terrorist attack, is being investigated,” said prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu.
The cuts halted work at factories throughout the country, although many fruit exporters managed to continue working thanks to emergency generators.
“We lost electricity for approximately 20 hours,” said Esra Söyleyen of exporter Aksun, “but since our factory has a generator, it did not really affect us. But of course there are lots of factories that have been affected.”
By the late afternoon, electricity had been restored to 90 per cent of the capital, Istanbul, with other parts of the country having to wait until the evening before the lights came back on.
Theories abound as to the cause of the blackout, with some inferring a link between the incident and a simultaneous hostage crisis, which culminated in the death of the hostage takers and an Istanbul prosecutor.
