Iran is suffering a severe energy crisis, with much of the country plunged into darkness, industries closed down, and manufacturing at a halt, the New York Times reports.

The situation has reached a critical point and the country has virtually shut down to save energy. The government is now facing a difficult choice: cutting gas service to Iranian homes in the middle of the winter, depriving them of their primary source of heat, or cutting the supply to power plants that generate electricity.

On Friday, the government shut down 17 power plants and the remaining ones are only partially operational.

“Government offices in Iran are closed or operating at reduced hours,” the report says. “Schools and colleges have moved to online only. Highways and shopping malls have descended into darkness, and industrial plants have been denied power, bringing manufacturing to a near halt.”

“Although Iran has one of the biggest supplies of natural gas and crude oil in the world, it is in a full-blown energy crisis that can be attributed to years of sanctions, mismanagement, aging infrastructure, wasteful consumption — and targeted attacks by Israel.”

Israel blew up two gas pipelines in Iran in February.

Mehdi Bostanchi, the head of the country’s Coordination Council of Industries, a nationwide body that acts as a liaison between industries and the government, said in an interview from Tehran that the situation was catastrophic and unlike anything industries had ever experienced.

“The policy of the government is to prevent at all costs cutting gas and heat to homes,” Seyed Hamid Hosseini, a member of the Chamber of Commerce’s energy committee, said in a telephone interview. “They are scrambling to manage the crisis and contain the damage because this is like a power keg that can explode and create unrest across the country.”

According to the report, Tavanir, Iran’s state power company, has warned companies producing everything from food, steel, and glass, to medicine that that they need to prepare for widespread power cuts that can last days or weeks.

“The news has sent both state-controlled and private industries into a tailspin,” the report says.

Iran began implementing two-hour daily power cuts to residential homes in November but the step was not enough. The power cuts now happen more often and last longer. For two days last week, schools, universities, banks, and government offices were shut down with only a day’s notice in most of the country in order to save energy. On Thursday, all schools and higher education institutions were moved online for the remainder of the semester.

Iranians are waking up not knowing if they’ll be able to go to work that day or send their children to school, or if traffic lights and elevators will be operating.

“The power outage has severely affected daily life and work,” said Sephidah, a 32-year-old teacher and resident in Tehran. Dephidah said that her online English classes are regularly canceled due to Internet outages.

Nader, a dentist, said that he sometimes has to stop working on patients’ mouths in the middle of procedures due to power cuts.

The owner of one of the largest manufacturing plants for construction materials said in an interview from Tehran that the past week has been more stressful and chaotic than major events in past decades, including war, sanctions, and revolution. He said that “an overwhelming sense of uncertainty was spreading among the private sector, with the country slipping into uncharted territory with crisis after crisis that the government seems unable to control.”

“We are facing very dire imbalances in gas, electricity, energy, water, money and environment,” said President Masoud Pezeshkian in a live televised address to the nation this month. “All of them are at a level that could turn into a crisis.”

“We must apologize to the people that we are in a situation where they have to bear the brunt,” Pezeshkian said. “G-d willing, next year we will try for this not to happen.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)