The severity of the current outages have prompted some civilians to suggest that living conditions are now worse than during the 15-year civil war which ended in 1990. The Central Bank has blamed petrol shortages on hoarding and smuggling to Syria because petrol is so heavily subsidised at great cost to the state which is running low on foreign reserves, The IndependentвЂ™s Middle East correspondent Bel Trew reported in September.Д«ut in a move seen as a phasing out of these subsidies, the government has repeatedly raised fuel prices in recent months вЂ“ further hitting residents in a nation where the UN estimates more than 80 per cent of the population live in multi-dimensional poverty. Not only have the shortages impacted businesses and left residents sweltering and unable to properly refrigerate food, they have also threatened to disrupt clean water supplies, while hospitals вЂ“ in the midst of the pandemic вЂ“ have been forced to close wards and reduce services, at points warning that they would have to turn off ventilators and dialysis machines. While rolling blackouts have been a feature of life in Lebanon for decades, meaning a a significant number of residents have access to private generators, the scarcity and soaring costs of the fuel needed to run them have rendered them an increasingly inaccessible lifeline. In August, the countryвЂ™s former electricity minister lamented that while the country required 3,000 megawatts of power, it had only enough fuel to produce 750.ДЄs a result, residents have reported having access to just one or two hours of state electricity per day, if any. Then came the blast at BeirutвЂ™s port, killing more than 200 people, displacing hundreds of thousands, wrecking countless homes and business, and disrupting transport and sewage systems in the capital city of a country already struggling to develop and maintain its basic infrastructure.ДЄnd with its foreign currency reserves running dry, Lebanon has found it harder to pay overseas energy suppliers, leaving its power plants without the necessary fuel to operate. Meanwhile, inflation, unemployment and poverty have soared, with the cost of food reported to have increased five-fold and supplies of medicine running low, even as the coronavirus pandemic hit. It is now estimated to have lost 90 per cent of its value, although its exact value is now hard to ascertain. As a black market foreign exchange opened up, the national currencyвЂ™s value tanked. With US dollars draining from Lebanon and the inflow of foreign currency drying up, the countryвЂ™s banks closed their doors вЂ“ and restricted customersвЂ™ withdrawals. The crash came in late 2019, when the government resigned in the face of mass protests, sparked by a proposed tax on WhatsApp but fuelled by anger at government corruption and the looming financial crisis. The grounds for the current crisis can arguably be traced back decades, to the end of the civil war, since which point successive governments have piled up one of the highest debt burdens in the world, amid accusations of chronic corruption and mismanagement. One government official warned it would be unlikely to restart for several days.ДЄccording to broadcaster LCBI, officials at the state-run electricity firm Electricite du Liban have been left scrambling to rebuild the grid manually, with its national control centre having been destroyed in the explosion last August that devastated Beirut and plunged the country вЂ“ and its government, which collapsed shortly afterwards вЂ“ further into turmoil. With energy production at the national grid falling to 200 megawatts, down from the 3,000 megawatts said to be required, the system failed. In the latest collapse, notable for its severity, the countryвЂ™s two largest power stations, al Zahrani and Deir Ammar, were forced to shut down, reportedly as a result of fuel shortages. Not for the first time in recent months, the power has gone out in Lebanon.ДЄlready contending with what has been described by the World Bank as one of the worldвЂ™s worst economic crises in 150 years, the country is also facing rolling blackouts вЂ“ which have further disrupted daily life for millions and have threatened LebanonвЂ™s water supplies and health system.

Recent world crisis