Baghdad: When Mercury jumped to 52 degrees Celsius (125 Fahrenheit) this week in Iraq, Ali Karrar put his baby for several minutes in the fridge.
But when power leaves on Thursday night in Iraq who is rich in oil, people are left at the time of how to escape from hot heat.
Those by connecting refrigerators, air conditioning units and fans for private generators – but not Karrar, who live in the city of Al-Hillah, and others throughout south.
Four southern provinces have been without electricity since Tuesday, including Basra – home to the main port of Iraq.
The sizzling temperature has been compounded by a high moisture rate.
“Children sleep right on the floor to try and stay calm, but we, adults, haven’t slept twinking tonight,” Meshaal Hashem, a labor laborer worker and father of AFP.
In the city of Diwaniyah, Rahi Abdelhussein bought an ice bag to cool her children, saying it helped moisturize them.
Shops have placed hoses and emergency shower outdoors to attract customers to stop.
Anger has been installed among 40 million Iraqi populations, with corrupt politicians at the game center blamed for poor services and dilapidated infrastructure.
“The Electricity Ministry blames the Ministry of Oil that blames the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of Finance says the culprit is Iran, but Iran said it was the error of the Iraqi government, and the government handed over errors in people who accused the politicians lacking,” Iraqi political analyst at Jiyad said tweeted.
“The politicians only shrugged and said,” We must live with him.
“” Boiling temperatures and electricity blackouts often go hand in hand during the summer months in Iraq, but there are other factors behind the latest crisis.
Iraq – The second largest producer in OPEC oil cartel – buy gas and power from neighboring Iran to supply about one third of its strength sector, dilapidated with tens of years of poor conflict and maintenance.
But Iran decided on Tuesday to cut supplies to neighbors, said the Iraqi Electricity Ministry owed around $ 6 billion in arrears.
Iraq said he could not pay because of US sanctions against money transfers to Iran, a deep financial crisis was exacerbated by lower oil prices, and Covid-19 pandemics.
The government in Baghdad also said some consumers pay their utility bills, with many electricity steal by connecting lines illegally to electricity.
Endemic corruption was the main driver of protests that rocked Iraq starting from October 2019 to June 2020.
Iraq was ranked 21st from the last below the international corruption perception index of Transparence, with tens of billions of dollars missing from the cashier.
The latest power outages have triggered protests and clashes with police in the southern province of Missan and the referee, leaving 12 people injured, seven of them police.
The Electricity Ministry said blackouts, which began in the south before spreading throughout the country, caused by attacks that cannot be explained on the power line.
“Someone tried to disrupt the country and sow chaos,” Ahmad Moussa Ministry spokesman said on television, without giving further details.
The Electricity Minister Majed Hantoosh, he resigned on Monday, the day before Tehran announced his cutting in stock.
It was the 18th year in a row that Iraqi’s electricity had failed to survive the summer.
In June, a senior official said Iraq wanted to build eight nuclear power reactors in 2030.
According to experts, Iraq, the reverse must renovate its infrastructure, because between 30 and 50 percent of the power capacity lost because the circuit is outdated.