Monday the thermometer reached up to 50 ° C in Baghdad and in 11 provinces of the center and southern country.
Iraq was almost completely deprived of public electricity for several hours on Monday due to a giant failure caused, according to the authorities, by record temperatures, reaching 50 ° C in Baghdad and in several provinces, and an increase in consumption. In this country of 46 million inhabitants, where the heat waves are more and more frequent, most households can nevertheless eat thanks to the generators, while the current heat wave should still last for more than a week, depending on the weather services.
Still on Monday, as in recent days, the thermometer has reached up to 50 ° C in Baghdad and in 11 provinces in the center and southern country. According to the Ministry of Electricity, under the effect of hot weather and the increase in demand, two lines of transmission stopped on Monday afternoon, “Providing a sudden and accidental loss on the network of more than 6,000 megawatts”which led to stopping power plants.
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The rise in demand concerns in particular the province of Kerbala, in the center of the country, while millions of pilgrims flock to the Holy Shiite city on the occasion of the important religious commemoration of Arbain. “Our teams are currently mobilized on the ground to gradually restore in the coming hours” The network said the Ministry of Electricity.
The failure was noted through Iraq around 3:00 p.m. (12:00 p.m. GMT), according to the ministry, before the current begins to be restored “Gradually” In the provinces of Dhi Qar and Missane, in the South. For the coastal province of Bassra, the situation should have stabilized by Tuesday at dawn, added the ministry which did not give forecasts for the other provinces. The breakdown spared autonomous Kurdistan, a region in northern Iraq which works to modernize its own sector and manages to provide 24 hours a day to a third of its population.
“Without electricity, no rest”
The electricity file is ultra -sensitive in Iraq, a country extremely rich in hydrocarbons but with deliquescence infrastructure, suffering from endemic corruption and failing public policies. In summer, the cuts that make up carefully cause demonstrations and exacerbate the frustration of the population vis-à-vis the elites in power. Just as the drought that has raged for five years aggravates water shortages and hit farmers hard.
Even without generalized breakdown, the poorest of the Iraqis must live on a daily basis by supporting hellish heat. “It’s hot, we have no electricity, she comes two hours and we can then sleep a little and rest”entrusted AFP on Sunday, in his house with concrete walls, Haider Abbas, a 44 -year -old daily worker. His modest means prevent this father from five, from the locality of Al-Qassim in the province of Babylon, in the center of Iraq, to buy an air conditioner. He must be satisfied with an air refresh that he constantly fills with water bottles. “When I was little, we didn’t have these temperatures”he recalls. “Me, as a worker, with 52 degrees I cannot work.”
In Iraq, the heat waves are “More intense and more frequent” That in the 20th century, due to climate change and human factors, the spokesman for weather services, Amer Al-Jaberi, told AFP. He stressed that gas emissions and fumes released by private generators “Contributed to the rise in temperatures”. Mr. Al-Jaberi pleads for a “green belt” Around Baghdad, “For the city to breathe a little”.
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If the vast majority of Iraqis use private generators, this source of electricity is not always enough to operate all household appliances, especially air conditioners. To live without cuts, Iraq must produce around 55,000 MW during consumption peaks. This month, and for the first time, the Iraqi electric power plants reached the threshold of 28,000 MW. In July 2023, a fire in a transmission station in the south of the country caused a generalized power failure.
