Iraq restores power after blackouts hit the country

Power has been restored in Iraq, a government official said on Tuesday, a day after electricity outages hit large parts of the country.

Electricity ministry sources had told Reuters a sudden shutdown at the Hamidiya power plant in the western province of Anbar led to a fault in the electricity transmission network that caused a power outage in the central and southern regions of the country.

The temperature in the capital Baghdad reached a high of 48 degrees Celsius on Tuesday.

"The defect was brought under control and fixed in record time, and the power system is now stable," Adel Karim, an adviser to the Iraqi prime minister, told Reuters on Tuesday.

Many Iraqis have relied for years on privately operated generators for power as government-provided electricity was only intermittently available. Others have turned to solar power to help meet their electricity needs.

A member of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and one of the world's leading oil producers, Iraq has struggled to provide its citizens with energy since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

In the ensuing turmoil, under-investment and mismanagement left the national grid unable to cope with demand.

In March, US President Donald Trump's administration rescinded a waiver that had allowed Iraq to pay Iran for electricity, as part of Trump's "maximum pressure" campaign against Tehran.

Iraq is heavily dependent on Iranian natural gas imports to generate power.