Iraq announces nationwide power outage amid ‘record’ heat

Power was out across Iraq on Monday as scorching summer temperatures pushed electricity grid demand to unprecedented levels, authorities said.

The outage came amid a heatwave that Iraqi meteorological services expect to last more than a week, with temperatures climbing as high as 50C in parts of the country.

Mitigating the grid interruption was the fact that most households rely on private generators, acquired to compensate for daily power cuts to public electricity.

The electricity ministry…