Epoch Times | Power Cuts and Water Shortages Hit Chilly Iraq

Iraqi boys drink water from a water pipe crossing an uncovered sewage canal at the area of Fdailiyah southeast of Baghdad. (Wissam Al-Okaili/AFP/Getty Images)

BAGHDAD—Iraq's government on Monday blamed neighbouring countries, a gasoline shortage and sabotage for power cuts that have left people shivering in many parts of the country, gripped by a bitterly cold winter.

In the capital, where residents faced blackouts and water shortages during the summer, some districts were again reported to be without water and with only an hour or two of intermittent power a day.

"We have been without electricity for four or five days, not for a minute. Before that we used to have it for an hour a day. We have a small electricity heater that we all gather around," said Um Farah, 47, who lives in Qadissiya in southern Baghdad.

Temperatures in Baghdad have regularly been below zero since the start of winter and last week the city witnessed its first snowfall in memory.

Residents in some areas said they had had no water for several days and rooftop water tanks were running low.

"This is a crisis. We have not had electricity for two days. As for water, it has been cut since yesterday until now," said Um Aqil, 57, in Baghdad's northeast Adhamiya district.

The Electricity Ministry said the national grid had lost 600 megawatts of power in the past few days for reasons that were largely outside its control.

"Turkey has stopped supplying electricity to (the northern provinces of) Dahuk and parts of Arbil for technical reasons. Some neighbouring countries have also stopped providing gasoline to electricity stations in the province of Basra," it said.

Electricity Ministry spokesman Aziz Sultan said that referred to Kuwait. "But yesterday the Kuwaitis agreed to provide us with 36 trucks of gasoline," he told Reuters.

He said power lines from the oil refinery city of Baiji in northern Iraq to Baghdad had been sabotaged.

The cabinet office said in a statement that new ways of protecting power lines from attack were being studied.

Residents in the northern cities of Mosul and Kirkuk complained they had less than an hour of electricity a day. The Electricity Ministry said Kirkuk's Ajil oil field had stopped pumping, affecting most power stations in the north.

The ministry's Aziz said it was working to rehabilitate existing power stations, repairing broken power lines and importing more electricity from neighbouring countries.