Jake GodinTurkey has experienced its worst blackout in over a decade. (Video via Republic of Turkey Ministry of Culture and Tourism)
A power outage swept across the country Tuesday, disrupting transportation in many of the country's provinces and major cities. (Video via Bugün TV)
According to Turkish newspaper Hurriyet, the massive blackout is the worst the country has seen in 15 years. Turkish news station NTV says 51 of Turkey's 81 provinces were reporting outages.
"In Istanbul, the traffic lights, which are not getting any power right now, are an issue in the city that already feels a lot of traffic. No traffic lights has caused a little bit of chaos," reported CNN's Gul Tuysuz in Istanbul.
Flightradar24, a flight-tracking service, noted the power outage took down 11 of its 16 air-traffic receivers in the country and caused flights delays around the country. (Video via Turkish Airlines)
According to the Daily Sabah, around 25 cities, including Turkey's capital, Ankara, reported power outages. Turkey's largest city, Istanbul, reportedly has about 50 percent of its power back.
To complicate matters, Turkish government officials still don't know what caused the countrywide blackout.
Turkey's energy minister said at a press conference Tuesday neither terrorists nor a cyberattack were being ruled out as they investigate the cause. (Video via TRT)
The Turkish Electricity Transmission Co. blamed the outage on problems with transmission lines but didn't get any more specific than that.
While blackouts aren't exactly uncommon in Turkey, one on a scale such as this is much more rare. Two years ago, a massive blackout occurred just in Istanbul and left millions in the dark for over an hour.
Turkey's energy demands have sharply risen in the past decade as well, with the U.S. Energy Information Administration reporting the country's electricity demand went up more than 90 percent between 2001 and 2011.
This video includes images from Getty Images and music from Matt Lloyd / CC BY 3.0.
