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Sri Lanka's national grid fails, triggering a nationwide blackout

Power went out across the island of about 22 million people around midday on Saturday and was restored in stages. Sri Lanka's energy minister said the cause was still under investigation.

ScrollBeat DeskPublished: 17 Oct 2026, 22:54

File image of a darkened street during a nationwide power outage in Sri Lanka. Representational image used with the 17 October 2026 blackout report. Photo: BSS/AFP. BSS/AFP

Sri Lanka was hit by a nationwide electricity blackout on Saturday after its national grid tripped, officials said, prompting the state power distributor to ask rooftop solar owners to disconnect their systems.

The country was without grid power for more than two hours, with no clear timeline for full restoration, the state-run distributor Electricity Distribution Lanka said. Engineers were working to repair a fault affecting the entire grid.

Energy Minister Anura Karunathilaka said authorities hoped to restore supplies "stage by stage". "We request rooftop solar system owners to disconnect their systems until further instructions in order to support the restoration efforts," he said in a brief statement.

Officials suspected that excess solar power generation may have caused the breakdown. Sri Lanka has installed solar capacity of just over 3,000 megawatts, while daytime demand runs between 2,000 and 2,500 megawatts. Tax concessions have encouraged consumers to install solar panels and sell surplus electricity to the grid, creating imbalances the utility has struggled to manage.

The government aims to lift solar generation capacity to nearly 4,400 megawatts within three years, a 388 per cent increase from 2024.

It is not the first such failure. The entire grid shut down in February 2025, when solar generation exceeded consumption on a bright Sunday, and it took more than six hours to restore supplies.

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Election Commission to publish final voter list on 25 November

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ScrollBeat Desk18 Oct 2026, 00:13Open this article

A briefing in the auditorium of the Bangladesh Election Commission building at Agargaon in Dhaka in 2018. File photo. Press Information Department, Government of Bangladesh

The Election Commission will publish the updated final voter list on 25 November, after pushing back its earlier plan because the Union Parishad elections were rescheduled, officials said.

Under the schedule sent to field offices on Saturday, the draft voter list will be published on 5 November. Voters who want to change their area can apply until 31 October, and those applications will be settled by 5 November.

Claims and objections to the draft list can be filed until 20 November and must be decided by 23 November, with the decisions added to the list on 24 November, a day before the final publication.

People born on or before 31 October 2008 will be able to register as new voters, according to the notices. The first phase of the Union Parishad polls is due on 21 January, with voting in five phases; the schedule for the first phase may be announced in December.

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Prime Minister Tarique Rahman to make three-day state visit to Japan on 26 October

His political adviser, Zahir Uddin Swapan, told a visiting Japanese delegation in Dhaka that the trip would take Bangladesh-Japan relations to a new high.

ScrollBeat Desk18 Oct 2026, 00:13Open this article

Prime Minister Tarique Rahman at a session of the 13th National Parliament in Dhaka on 10 April 2026. File photo. Press Information Department, Government of Bangladesh

Prime Minister Tarique Rahman will make a three-day state visit to Japan from 26 October, his political adviser said on Saturday, as a visiting Japanese business delegation held talks in Dhaka on trade and investment.

Zahir Uddin Swapan, the prime minister's political adviser, who holds the rank of a minister, said the trip would take relations between the two countries to a new high. He spoke during a courtesy meeting with the delegation at the prime minister's Tejgaon office in Dhaka.

The delegation is in Bangladesh to discuss the potential for trade and commerce between the two countries ahead of the visit. Its members have been meeting government and private-sector representatives on matters of mutual interest, and Saturday's courtesy call was part of that schedule.

The announcement was reported by Prothom Alo, Bangla Tribune and Jugantor.