Nationwide power outage causes chaos in Turkey

A massive power outage due to a fault in power transmission lines has created chaos in dozens of cities across Turkey, raising fears of a terrorist attack.

The power cut, which began around 10:40 a.m. (0740 GMT) on Tuesday in the city of Istanbul and around the same time in several other Turkish cities, shut down the subway and tram systems in Istanbul and the capital, Ankara. Passengers were safely evacuated from the stations.

“We’re considering all probabilities behind nationwide power outage, including terrorism,” Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said following the blackout, adding that a crisis desk has been established at the Ministry of Energy.

“We cannot confirm whether power outage was a cyber or terrorist attack,” Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz stated, adding that the problem was resolved in some cities as of 12:00 p.m. local time.

The power cut put traffic lights in Istanbul out of service and caused traffic jam in central neighborhoods.

The outage affected at least two dozen cities, including Ankara, Izmir, Antalya and Adana, where telephone and Internet lines were also mainly down, private NTV television reported.