A Power Outage That Lasts for Several Days? Find out the Facts..

With the prevailing unrest in Sri Lanka, a curfew has been imposed in the country since 9^th of May. Number of unconfirmed claims about the ongoing situation in the country have also been rapidly spreading through social media. Social media posts claiming that there would be an island wide major power outage which could continue for a few days were viral especially on messaging platforms. However, our investigation found these claims to be misleading

Social Media Claims

A viral WhatsApp message was being shared as below claiming that the Ceylon Electricity Board is supposed to go for an indefinite strike from 9^th May midnight. As a result, the message urged the public to keep their mobile phones charged, inferring that there could be a power outage which would last a long time.

The message was also being shared in Facebook too.

Facebook | Archived

And some social media posts published last week claimed that CEB was ready to increase the power cut hours to 10 hours from this week (9^th May) onwards.

Facebook | Archived

Fact Check

We first inquired whether any mainstream media had reported on such a continuous power cut in the coming days. Yet we could not find any such confirmed reports.

Also, despite the rumors that such a continuous power cut will take place from midnight on the 9th of May, we detected that in many parts of the island, the power supply was normal on 10^th of May, subjected to a few hours of power cuts, as notified by the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka. Facebook

When we inquired about the continuous power cuts from the CEB media spokesman Andrew Navamuni, he said that no decision had been made so far regarding such a continuous power cut. However, he added that there would be power cuts to manage electricity demand as usual, which has been the case over the past few weeks.

We contacted Saumya Kumarawaduge, the head of the CEB Engineers' Association regarding the viral claims. He also clarified that he was not aware of such drastic actions of areas being subjected to long power cuts. However, he added that with the attack on Galle Face protestors, there was a possibility that many trade unions in the CEB would take a stand against the attack and as a result of trade union action, there could be some interruptions to power maintenance activities, but there was no indication of any continuous power cut.

However, the convener of the Ceylon Electricity Board, Ranjan Jayalal said that a trade union action has been launched and that the CEB employees had withdrawn from duties such as preparing electricity bills. But he added that the trade union action would not be carried out in a way that would cause longer power cuts that would be detrimental to the public. Mr. Jayalal went on to say that employees would not withdraw from maintenance, power plant work, etc. and that the trade union action, which was launched in support of the anti-government protests, will not cause to any major power outages (such as not being able to watch TV, not being able to charge mobile phones and access social media). He clarified the trade union stance further by saying that such longer power outages would only mean limited access to electronic and digital media, which are the main source public get informed about the ongoing situation. Hence, the CEB trade unions are in no way planning to make such channels unavailable due to longer power cuts, Jayalal stressed.

On 9^th of May, Ranjan Jayalal speaking to media and said that the Ceylon Electricity Board would go on a continuous strike, which could have instigated the misleading viral posts of power cuts of longer duration

The management of the Electricity Board also denies the claims published in the last few days that the daily power cuts could extend up to 10 hours due to fuel shortage. They say power cuts can be limited to around 3 hours daily. Details about it can be taken from here. Archived

Their views are seen in the below video.

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Conclusion:

Our investigation confirmed that there is no indication yet that there will be any continuous power cuts in coming days, as social media posts claim. Trade Unions of the CEB as well as CEB Management stated that Trade Union action would not have a major bearing on regular power supply schedules.