National power grid fails on Sinhala and Tamil new year day

Sri Lanka's national power grid crashed on Sunday, a holiday for the Sinhala-Tamil New Year, most likely due to overload, a senior state electric company official said.
"One of the hydropower stations called Vicotia power plant tripped. That's the reason for the island wide power cut," said Ceylon Electricity Board General Manager Ranjit Palleperuma.
Sunday is the first day of the Sinhala and Tamil New Year, when people traditionally stay at home and observe religious ceremonies.
Power failures are common during the festival season with overload on the national grid.
Palleperuma said engineers were working to restore the power supply. The outage was not related to the war between government soldiers and rebels fighting for an independent state for the ethnic minority Tamils, he said.
"It is not a (case of) sabotage," he said.
There are around 25 power plants in Sri Lanka, a country of 20 million people. But if one of the main power lines trips, the whole system shuts down.
Much of Sri Lanka's infrastructure, from roads to hospitals, has been neglected by successive governments focused on the two-decade civil war that has killed more han 70,000 people.