War in Ukraine: bad weather damages power plants, already damaged by Russian strikes
Cairo: Hani Kamal El-Din
A wave of bad weather left tens of thousands of Ukrainians without power on Tuesday April 16. “Due to bad weather, 173 localities in four regions are without electricity”the Ukrainian Energy Ministry said in a statement.
The bad weather thus increased the pressure on the country’s electricity system, hit hard by targeted Russian strikes for several weeks. One of the country’s main energy suppliers, the private DTEK group, said its engineers had worked “all night and morning”successfully restoring electricity to 33,000 households in the region. “We are making every effort to restore power to all homes by the end of the day”said DTEK.
The Dnipropetrovsk region, in the center-east of the country, was the most affected Tuesday morning by bad weather with around a hundred localities affected. Thunderstorms and strong winds damaged the electricity grid there, cutting power to more than 15,000 households and businesses. In Kryvyï Rig, “hospitals and critical infrastructure have switched to generators”said the head of the municipal military administration Oleksandr Vilkul.
This bad weather comes as Ukraine faces the drying up of Western military aid. The Trypillia thermal power station, near kyiv, completely destroyed by Russian missiles on April 11, could not be protected due to a lack of ammunition for the anti-aircraft defense supposed to cover it, Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview published Tuesday. “There were 11 missiles flying. We destroyed seven of them. The remaining four destroyed the power plant. Why? Because we had zero rockets”he told the American channel PBS.
