Nationwide power cut paralyses Turkey

ISTANBUL: A massive power cut caused chaos and shut down public transport across Turkey on Tuesday, with the government refusing to rule out that the electricity system had been the victim of an attack.
The nationwide power cut, the worst in 15 years, began shortly after 10:30 am (0730 GMT) in Istanbul; the state-run Anatolia news agency quoted the Turkey Electricity Transmission Company (TEIAS) as saying.
It was confirmed to have hit 49 of the country’s 81 provinces, from the Greek border to those in the southeast neighbouring Iran and Iraq and including Istanbul and the capital Ankara.
Several hours later, swathes of Turkey including much of Istanbul were still without power, although public transport systems such as metro lines appeared to be working again.
“Every possibility, including a terrorist attack, is being investigated,” said Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu after the magnitude of the outage became clear.
He said a crisis cell has been established at the energy ministry to handle situation, which occurred as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was out of the country on a visit to Slovakia.
Energy Minister Taner Yildiz also said the authorities were investigating whether the power outage was due to a technical failure or a “cyber-attack.”
“The most important thing for us is to bring the system back to life. This is not something we frequently experience,” said Yildiz, who was travelling with Erdogan. He later sought to calm tensions, saying power had already been restored to several regions and the whole country “would be fully energised again soon”. “We reached 90 percent levels in Istanbul. God willing, there’s not going to be a major problem,” he said.
“It is too early to say now if it is because of a technical reason, a manipulation, a fault play, an operational mistake, or a cyber (attack).