Cairo: A power failure on Thursday stalled the Cairo metro, leaving hundreds of thousands of commuters stranded.
The breakdown occurred during the morning rush hours, crippling mainly the first and third lines of the service that transport more than 3 million people a day. The second line of the metro, linking northern Cairo to Giza in the south, operated normally.
The power failure, caused by a technical glitch at a power plant west of Cairo, led to electricity cuts in large parts of Cairo and surrounding cities, according to local media.
Several private television stations also suffered disruptions in their transmission due to the outage.
The official Middle East News Agency (MENA) said the metro services on all lines returned to normal after a breakdown of almost two hours.
“The electricity problem that affected the operation of the first and third lines has been fixed,” Ali Al Fadali, the head of the state-run Egyptian Metro Management Company, told MENA
Egypt has suffered an acute energy crisis in recent months, which the government blames on fuel supply shortages and attacks carried out by on power infrastructure by Islamist militants.
