Babel: Power transmission line restored amid deliberate sabotage

Shafaq News / The Iraqi Ministry of Electricity announced on Sunday the successful restoration of the Maseeb-Alexandria power transmission line within the province of Babel, south of the capital Baghdad, after it suffered intentional sabotage that resulted in its outage.

In a statement, the ministry disclosed that a fresh attempt to tamper with the energy transmission lines, especially those vital and interconnecting various provinces, led to the disruption of the 132K.V power transmission line (Maseeb-Alexandria).

Further investigations revealed a deliberate act of sabotage, involving the placement of handled wires on the transmission line to cause a short circuit from both sides, thereby shutting it down.

The ministry assured that the intentional obstruction was successfully removed without causing any damages to the high-pressure wires of the aforementioned line. It also confirmed that power supply to citizens remains uninterrupted and without any disruptions.

The recurrence of power tower explosions in Iraq has become a pressing concern, particularly in the provinces of Salahuddin and Diyala, coinciding with the worsening state of the national power grid and soaring temperatures.

Just last Friday evening, another blast targeted the power transmission towers (East Baghdad-Diyala 400 kV) in the Khan Bani Saad area, leading to the outage of this critical line.