• Lebanon in total blackout, power plants without fuel

  • Lebanon, the new government accused of 'Talibanism'

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October 10, 2021 Lebanon is expected to reactivate power plants from today. Thus we read in a note from the Lebanese Minister of Energy who announced a credit from the central bank of 100 million dollars to start tenders for the production of electricity. In the note, the minister also communicates that the grid in the country has returned to supply the same amount of electricity as before the complete blackout on Saturday when the two major plants were closed due to the lack of fuel.



The situation

Yesterday, in fact, the Lebanese national electricity grid completely collapsed when the power plants of al-Zahrani and Deir Amar stopped working due to a lack of fuel. The announcement of the blackout came through the main Lebanese TV group LBCI Lebanon News. The Lebanese state-owned electric company, Electricite du Liban, meanwhile tried to "manually rebuild the national grid, in the absence of the national control center that was destroyed by the explosion in the port of Beirut" in the summer of 2020.



The total collapse of the national electricity system, the latest act of a crisis that has gripped the country of the Cedars for about two years, comes just when, after a year without a government - the one following the explosion at the port of Beirut that caused the death of more than 200 people -, the formation of a new executive, led by Najib Mikati, had started talks to restart negotiations with the International Monetary Fund, the only one able to guarantee the necessary liquidity to restart.



Since last night the whole country has been in the dark: only private generators work, until a few years ago a widespread asset but, to date, those who have not had problems in the face of loss of value have become a property only of the richest. 90% of the Lebanese pound against the dollar.

The lack of electricity has also affected the basic services, which even previously held up with difficulty, such as hospitals where interventions had already been postponed but where medicines and refrigerated deposits are lacking in which to store them.



An endless crisis for the Mediterranean country hinge between the West and the Middle East, a melting pot of ethnic groups and religions as well as the center of numerous international affairs and once called "the Switzerland of the Mediterranean".