Ah, dang Curious George is at it again. An entire country recently lost its power, and officials learned that it's all due to one curious monkey mucking about.
There's monkey business going on in Sri Lanka, and not the fun kind either. I went without power for a week during Hurricane Helene, so I know it's no fun. Well, the entire country suffered a massive power outage. This occurred during a heat wave in the country that left many a sweltering, sweaty mess. Many were without their air conditioners after a monkey climbed into a power station in the nation's capital of Colombo.
The primate caused the blackout and may have went up like a firework itself. Officials didn't reveal the state of the monkey in question, but it's likely deep-fried if it touched anything sparky. The animal triggered a blackout on Sunday right when things were the hottest, leaving 22 million people without power.
"A monkey came into contact with our grid transformer, causing an imbalance in the power system," the energy minister, Kumara Jayakody, explained via New York Post.
Monkey Takes Out The Power
The bigger question is how does a single curious primate take out an entire nation's power? The Ceylon Electricity Board apologized to the millions of citizens. But it did not reveal how something like this. But it's worth noting that Sri Lanka has a severely outdated power system.
"The national power grid is in such a weakened state that frequent island-wide power outages may be expected if there is a disturbance in one of our lines," an unnamed senior engineer said.
It's not the first time that the nation has suffered issues with its powers. In 2022, the country had a series of blackouts. That time it was caused by fuel shortages rather than a monkey. Monkeys themselves remain a problem in the country, given the sheer numbers of the primates. It's not an uncommon sight to find a monkey raiding a village for food.
Following the power outage, several took to social media.
"One monkey = total chaos. Time to rethink infrastructure?" one user wrote.
"Only in Sri Lanka can a monkey knock out the entire nation's electricity," another wrote.
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