Lebanon plunged into darkness ‘for days’ as country runs out of electricity

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Not for the first time in recent months, the country’s two largest power stations – al Zahrani and Deir Ammar – have been forced to shut down, reportedly due to fuel shortages. A government official told Reuters: “The Lebanese power network completely stopped working at noon today, and it is unlikely that it will work until next Monday, or for several days.” Lebanon has been racked by a wave of crises impacting all aspects of daily life since its economy began to collapse in 2019, with poverty, unemployment and inflation soaring amid vast discontent at a political system long accused of corruption and mismanagement. The official quoted by Reuters on Saturday suggested Electricite du Liban will seek to use the army’s fuel oil reserve to operate the power plants temporarily, but that will not happen anytime soon. A senior employee at the energy company was cited by UAE-based newspaper The National as saying he was “shocked that people are shocked” at the news of the outage, adding: “We had warned about this before, we are out of fuel.” Hassan Khalife, 50, who owns a small barbecue joint in Beirut, previously told Reuters: “During the civil war, even with how horrible it was, there weren’t any power cuts.” He added: “The state, which is supposed to take care of its people, is doing the opposite, it’s trying to humiliate us as much as it can.” Last month, the United Nations pledged $10m to ease the fuel crisis, allocating the funds to keep water stations functioning and to help 65 hospitals and other medical facilities, many of which had been forced to reduce operations due to lack of fuel and electricity.