Minister of Electricity: Yesterday’s electricity outage caused by terrorist attack

The Minister of Electricity Ghassan Al-Zamel said on Saturday that an investigation into yesterday’s general electricity outage proved that a terrorist attack with explosive devices has targeted the gas line supplying the power plants of Tishreen and Deir Ali as well as two 400 KV voltage towers in Damascus Countryside.

The attack caused a sudden drop in gas pressure to Deir Ali power plant, which immediately went out of service, affecting Damascus, its countryside and other areas, the minister added.

In a statement to SANA, the Minister announced that electricity has  returned to all provinces half an hour after the attack and after operating the powers stations in Syria’s northern region, starting with Al-Zara station and then Gandar, Al-Nasiriya, Banias and Mhardeh stations.

Electricity returned gradually to all provinces starting from Homs, Damascus, Tartous, Latttakia and then to all other provinces, he added. 

The minster clarified that the Deir Ali power plant provides more than 50 percent of Syria’s needs of electricity, and its stoppage, as a result of the attack, has led the rest of the operating stations to go out of service as a result of frequency drop.

 He pointed out that the ministry’s maintenance teams started work since early morning to fix the damaged towers and that the maintenance teams of the Ministry of Oil and Mineral Resources are working to fix the damaged gas line, so that gas supplies and electricity returns to their normal situation as soon as possible.

In the same context the Ministry of Oil and Mineral Resources announced that the Arab gas line was targeted by a terrorist attack in the area of Harran Al-Awameed in Damascus countryside. The attack stopped gas supplies to the country’s southern region and consequently led to the stoppage of the electric power generating stations.

In a statement on Saturday, the ministry said that technical workshops at the Syrian Gas Company have started work to repair the gas line, pointing out that repair works are expected to be completed with the coming 24 hours.

Hamda Mustafa