Iranians suffer from power blackouts during war and heatwave
Tehran, Iran – On a subway car in the Iranian capital, Kamran and Moein, two students at Sharif University of Technology, are glued to a
Tehran, Iran – On a subway car in the Iranian capital, Kamran and Moein, two students at Sharif University of Technology, are glued to a mobile phone, watching a viral video of a frustrated ice cream vendor bursting with anger after 180kg (400lb) of his merchandise melted because of power cuts. The video resonated with 22-year-old Kamran. Just a few days earlier, power outages led to his university’s servers going offline during final exams. As a result, the electronic exam platforms went missing, and 38 tests were postponed until next month. “The blackouts have derailed and disturbed all of our plans,” Kamran told Al Jazeera. “You lose the will to even study because you never know if the exam will actually happen. You could study all night, only to wake up and find everything cancelled because of electricity cuts.” For 24-year-old Moein, the crisis is about more than postponed university exams. “Ask the patients who rely on ventilators in their homes or those storing vital medicines in refrigerators,” he said. “For them, a power cut isn’t a delayed exam. It’s a matter of life or death. We only see the tip of the iceberg.” Broken promises and bombed infrastructure The crisis cuts deeper for many Iranians because it contradicts a string of official assurances.
Just days before the outbreak of the United States-Israel war on Iran in February, President Masoud Pezeshkian and Energy Minister Abbas Aliabadi promised a summer without electricity disruptions. Those promises have evaporated during a severe heatwave and renewed US military strikes on southern Iran, turning sporadic outages into a daily reality across the nation. When asked by a journalist about the sudden, unannounced blackouts, Tehran City Council Chairman Mehdi Chamran retorted: “If you knew how many electrical facilities were bombed two days ago, you wouldn’t ask this question.” electricity company CEO Mohammad Allahdad confirmed the scale of the devastation, citing a 4,200-megawatt drop in grid capacity and damage to more than 2,000 points across the network. Local media reported that US strikes on a power plant on Kish Island and severe damage to distribution networks in Bandar Abbas, Jask and Chabahar have compounded technical failures driven by the extreme heat. An Al Jazeera tour of Tehran revealed a city adapting to chronic shortages. Small business owners rely on noisy portable generators to save perishable goods. Large digital billboards sit dark, and police officers manually direct traffic at major intersections where traffic lights have failed. Hospitals, however, have largely remained insulated, relying on back-up systems to keep intensive care units operating while surrounding neighbourhoods plunge into darkness.
The BriefWire