Apriadi Gunawan, Medan – Muslims in Medan are blaming state power company PLN for recurring power cuts, which they say are disrupting special activities during the fasting month of Ramadhan.

The caretaker of Medan's main Al Ikwhan mosque, Asno Susanto, said the North Sumatra branch of PLN had broken its promise not to cut power during the month.

"Frankly speaking, we are disappointed with PLN's service. Blackouts in the Ramadhan will be very disturbing, especially for those performing their religious duties," Asno said.

A city-wide outage on the first day of the fasting month disrupted the fast breaking and the tarawih evening prayers, with many people canceling plans to go to mosques because they feared leaving their houses unattended.

Only a few dozen people had gone to Al Ikwhan on Sunday evening, compared to the hundreds who usually attended the mosque in the early days of Ramadhan, Asno said. Asno did not expect a blackout to occur because PLN had promised to avoid outages a few days earlier.

A Belawan resident, Aidil Syahputra, said the blackout ruined his family's fast-breaking ceremony on the first day of Ramadhan. Instead of a composed ritual, everyone scrambled to find a light, he said. "PLN has gone too far," Aidil said.

North Sumatra PLN spokesman Agus Muliadi apologized for the blackout on Sunday, which he said was caused by a natural event. He assured customers the company would stick to its promise not to cut power during Ramadhan.

"A power transformer in Paya Pasir, Belawan, was hit by lightning, thereby disrupting the power generating units in Belawan," Agus told The Jakarta Post. The blowout meant PLN was short of 151 megawatts of power, a significant disturbance that shut down power in a number of areas, he said.

Agus said repair work on the power transformer was underway. He hoped transmission would be back to normal by Monday evening.