iStockphoto / Dmytro Buianskyi
If you are feeling insignificant today juts know that a single monkey in Sri Lanka took down the entire country’s power grid for all 22 million people. The country’s energy minister told reporters the nationwide blackout was the result of one lone monkey that touched a transformer and threw off their entire system.
After the single monkey took down the power grid for 22 million Sri Lankan citizens, much of the country kicked on their generators while waiting for answers and those answers quickly came from Energy Minister Kumara Jayakody.
While speaking with reporters, Energy Minister Kumara Jayakody said the reason the island nation was in a total blackout was because “a monkey has come in contact with our grid transformer, causing an imbalance in the system.” Again, one monkey took out power for the entire island nation that’s slightly larger than the size of West Virginia. One. Monkey.
The nationwide blackout lasted 5 hours on Sunday before emergency response workers were able to get things running again for much of Sri Lanka.
Unfortunately, while the status of the mischievous monkey was never revealed it is presumed the monkey did not survive coming in contact with a grid transformer at a power station south of Colombo. That said, we don’t have any evidence the Sri Lankan monkey was barbecued on the spot so it’s possible he is still out there roaming the jungle telling his monkey friends about what happened.
There are five species of monkey that call Sri Lanka home: the Toque macaque, Purple-faced langur, Red slender loris, Gray langur, and the Loris lydekkerianus. It is one of the top places on earth to view monkeys in the wild and there’s hope that locals won’t take out their 5-hour loss of power on the other monkeys as retribution.