COLOMBO —
Sri Lanka announced nationwide
13-hour daily power cuts from Thursday and more hospitals suspended routine
surgeries after running out of life-saving medicines, as the cash-strapped
island’s economic crisis deepened.
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The
South Asian nation of 22 million people is in
its worst economic spiral since independence in 1948, sparked by an acute lack
of foreign currency to pay for even the most essential imports.
The state electricity monopoly said it was extending
Wednesday’s 10-hour power cut by another three hours from Thursday, enforcing a
13-hour rolling nationwide blackout.
The country had been under severe electricity
rationing since the start of the month and the monopoly said an earlier hike in
power outage from seven hours to 10 hours was imposed because there was no oil
to power thermal generators.
More than 40 percent of Sri Lanka’s electricity is
generated from hydropower, but most of the reservoirs were running dangerously
low because there had been no rains, officials said.
Most electricity production in Sri Lanka is from coal and oil.
Both are imported but in short supply, as the country does not have enough
dollars to pay suppliers.
At least two more hospitals reported suspending
routine surgeries because they were dangerously low on vital medical supplies,
anesthetics, and chemicals to carry out diagnostic tests, and wanted to save
them for emergency cases.
The country’s biggest medical facility, the National
Hospital of Sri Lanka in the capital said it had also stopped routine
diagnostic tests.
An official added however that the facility
continued to receive power supply from the national grid.
Widespread protests
Sri Lanka’s main fuel
retailer meanwhile said there would be no diesel, the fuel most commonly used
for public transport, in the country for at least two days.
Local broadcasters reported widespread protests
across the country demanding fuel for private vehicles, which are also used for
public transport.
There were no reports of violence, but hundreds of
motorists blocked main roads in several towns while dozens demonstrated outside
the Central Bank of Sri Lanka in
Colombo demanding the removal of governor
Ajith Cabraal.
Officials from the state-owned Ceylon Petroleum
Corporation urged queuing motorists to leave and return only after imported
diesel is unloaded and distributed.
Fuel prices have
also been repeatedly raised, with petrol costs nearly doubling and diesel up by
76 percent since the beginning of the year.
Colombo imposed a broad import ban in March 2020 to
save foreign currency needed to service its $51 billion in foreign debt.
But this has led to widespread shortages of
essential goods and sharp price rises.
The government
has said it is seeking a bailout from the International Monetary Fund while
asking for more loans from India and
China.
Sri Lanka’s current predicament was exacerbated by
the COVID-19 pandemic, which torpedoed tourism and remittances.
Many
economists also blame government mismanagement
including tax cuts and years of budget deficits.
The country’s statistics office on Wednesday announced
economic growth of 3.7 percent for the 2021 calendar year, before the crisis
began to bite — up from a record contraction of 3.6 percent the previous year.
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