The unusual consumption of electricity in the wake of the heat wave which hit Israel on Friday led to self-initiated outages of electricity across the country, affecting among others Tel Aviv, Kiryat Ono and other cities.
Every hour, the electricity has been cut off in a different area in the country, in order to moderate the consumption.According to estimates, the initiated blackouts are expected to end around 9:00 p.m. on Friday night, but disruptions are still expected in the coming day due to the lack of preparation.
The Israel Electric Company updated that as of 8:40 p.m., less than 85,000 Israelis are without power, after there were as many as 300,000 without power earlier in the day.
A senior official in the Israeli electricity sector commented on the self-initiated power outages in a conversation with Walla!, and claimed that "the power outages we saw today are just the promo for what awaits us in the summer."
The senior official blamed the government for failing to make decisions that led to the catastrophic situation in which the electricity sector in Israel is experiencing and added, "If the government doesn’t get moving, things will only get worse."
Meanwhile, Energy Minister Israel Katz commented on the electricity issues on his Twitter account.
"This week I passed a government decision regarding additional production to the electricity sector, after the previous government refrained from making decisions due to various pressures. As we also saw today, the electricity sector is in a severe crisis and I intend to work to soon bring more decisions to change the situation," he wrote.
(Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)