Iranian officials trade blame as energy crisis, outages worsen: What to know
Unplanned power outages across Tehran in February have brought Iran’s energy crisis back into the spotlight, particularly as the country grapples with the strain of the maximum pressure sanctions campaign placed upon it by the United States.
Iran’s Deputy Minister of Industry, Mine and Trade Hossein Farhidzadeh apologized for ongoing power outages in the country and said that the outages had cost Iran’s industrial sector more than $108 million a day in damages.
“I do apologize that we have not been able to provide the basic necessary conditions for manufacturers,” Farhidzadeh said while speaking at a ceremony in the northwestern province of Kermanshah on Thursday. He said that power outages over the past year caused more than $108 million per day in damage to the Iranian industrial sector, according to the IRNA.
The apology comes after unplanned power outages hit districts across Iran’s capital city, Tehran, early last week. The outages began on Feb. 11 and lasted for hours, causing gridlock and loss of mobile phone networks across Tehran.
Residents of Ekbatan Town in western Tehran reportedly chanted anti-government slogans from their windows during the blackouts.
