Mobile and broadband services across Malé and Hulhumalé faced disruptions on Sunday following a widespread power outage, according to announcements by the country’s two main telecom providers.
Ooredoo Maldives said customers in the capital and its adjoining island Hulhumalé “may face interruptions in mobile services and Fibre broadband” due to the outage. “In case of continued power outage, our main hub cell sites will last longer with backup gensets. Our other cell sites are currently running on battery backup,” the company said in a post on X.
Dhiraagu, the country’s other major operator, also confirmed service interruptions. “During this commercial power failure in Greater Malé, our mobile cell sites are currently operating on battery backup. However, prolonged commercial power outage may result in failure of cell sites, interrupting mobile services for our customers,” it said in an X post.
The outage affected the Greater Malé region, including Malé, Hulhumalé, and Velana International Airport.
State Electric Company Limited (STELCO) said the outage was caused by a technical fault identified as an “earth fault,” which led to a complete shutdown of the power grid. “Due to a total blackout, the checkups required to be completed before re-energising the Greater Malé grid are now underway,” STELCO said in a statement.
