LONDON: A gas pipeline explosion on Wednesday at the Tishreen Thermal Power Plant in the Damascus countryside has forced three major power plants out of service, Syrian authorities said.
The blast in the Harran Al-Awamid area, near Damascus International Airport, cut the gas supplies required to operate the Deir Ali, Nasiriyah and Tishreen power plants, the Syrian Electricity Company said. The resulting loss of generating capacity was expected to increase the duration of scheduled power cuts, it added.
The company said it would provide updates on the status of the power plants and electricity supplies but did not say how many additional hours of outages were expected, which areas would be affected or how long the disruption might last.
A fire sparked by the explosion was still burning at the time the power company issued its statement. Specialized emergency teams responded to the blaze and were assessing the damage, but officials offered no estimate for when operations might resume at the plants.
Civil Defense teams later said they had brought the fire at the Tishreen power station under control and cooling operations had begun. The cause of the explosion was not immediately known.
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