A monkey has been blamed for causing a nationwide blackout in Sri Lanka. The island nation’s 22 million residents were mostly left without power during the outage, which began around 11am local time on Sunday.

The country’s energy minister, Kumara Jayakody, told reporters that the blackout was caused when a monkey came into contact with a grid transformer near the island’s executive and judicial capital, Colombo.

“A monkey has come in contact with our grid transformer, causing an imbalance in the system,” Mr Jayakody said following the blackout.

“Engineers are attending to it to try and restore the service as soon as possible,” he added.

Power was returned to some areas within hours, but many households were without electricity until late on Sunday.