Sleeping in corridors, sheltering in cars: The struggle to cope with power cuts

In an apartment block in Fgura, neighbours spent the night going outside to escape the heat, sleeping in communal areas and carrying a wheelchair user up a dark staircase after the lift stopped working.  

It is a scene being echoed across Malta, where prolonged power cuts have left communities struggling to cope during a heatwave with temperatures exceeding 42°C . 

Residents in the four-storey block in Triq is-Sardinella say they have endured intermittent electricity since last Thursday before losing power completely at around 6pm on Monday, leaving them without electricity for more than 20 hours. 

Unable to sleep in stifling apartments, neighbours gathered outside at 1am in search of cooler air. By the following day, some had retreated to the building's common areas in a bid to escape the oppressive heat. 

The outages have turned everyday tasks into ordeals. 

Steve Abela has spent hours standing on a ladder, manually pouring water into his aquarium every few minutes to keep oxygen circulating after the filtration system stopped working. 

The aquarium contains tropical fish worth thousands of euros, with some costing more than €200 each. 

He said he was just “buying time” and that if the situation persisted until the evening, bacteria in the water would accumulate, it would stagnate, and that would be the end of the fish. 

'Prisoner in a heatwave'

In another of the 14 apartments in the block was a wheelchair-bound 60-year-old, who was a “prisoner in a heatwave”. He effectively become trapped after the lift stopped working. Even when electricity briefly returned, neighbours said they did not trust the lift enough to use it. 

Francesco Blandino helped carry the man down and back up the building's dark staircase. 

Blandino himself said he had slept exactly one hour and 51 minutes the previous night and no more than three or four hours on any night since the outages began. 

“I have no choice but to go to work. And when I clock off this afternoon, I have no idea what to do with myself if I see that I still do not have power at home,” he said on Tuesday. 

Residents said they had thrown away spoiled food, struggled to cook or charge phones and spent hours trying to report faults to Enemalta. 

Blandino was one of many who had to leave the house to eat out but found most restaurants in the area shut due to the power cuts. Back home, he was confined to his balcony, with nothing to do. 

'Enemalta are zero help'

Abela described spending taking 20 minutes to get through only to spend another 10 just to get a reference number for a follow-up that never happens, Abela said. 

“They are there just to take note – zero help,” he continued. 

“Quote me that I expect Energy Minister Miriam Dalli to resign as I doubt she has any qualifications,” Abela continued, echoing the disgruntled thoughts of many on Facebook. 

The building has suffered low-voltage problems for years, residents said, adding they had repeatedly reported the issue without a lasting solution. 

But their frustrations are mirrored elsewhere across Malta.  

In Balzan, 80-year-old John Sullivan spent two hours sitting in his car with the air conditioning running before spending the night at his daughter's house. 

He said he had wondered how other elderly people living alone were coping. 

“The first thing I did was call those guys (from the Health Ministry), who send us messages about ‘keeping cool’ in the heatwave, to give them a mouthful!” 

In Baħar iċ-Ċagħaq, an 81-year-old woman used her car to charge her mobile phone after almost 20 hours without electricity. 

Nearby, Melanie Cremona said her family spent the night sleeping on the floor before being repeatedly disturbed by house and car alarms sounding as the power failed and returned. She described herself as “running on empty” and was unable to charge her electric vehicle due to the endless outage. 

Another resident, Vanessa Macdonald, considered catching a bus to Valletta simply to escape the heat. 

"The buses have air conditioning and we'd be able to eat in an air-conditioned restaurant," she reasoned. 

Her family also rushed to remove a car from their electrically operated garage during one of the brief periods when power returned, fearing they could otherwise become stranded. 

Our friend offered us to take our food over to her fridge in Kalkara – but then Kalkara had a power cut!

The power cuts were not just about sleepless nights and moving around “like Florence Nightingale”, but the inability to cook and work, with no laptops, no internet, phones down to 3G or unable to be charged. 

“Our friend offered us to take our food over to her fridge in Kalkara – but then Kalkara had a power cut! 

“Thank goodness for a USB-charged light we use for outdoors,” she said, adding they had no idea when the electricity would be restored. 

“Ninety minutes is one thing, but 19 hours is another story!” 

For some families, however, the outages have become far more than an inconvenience. 

One woman wrote on Facebook that she and her husband, who has stage-four cancer and had only recently undergone major surgery, had been without electricity for 27 hours. 

She said the least the authorities could have done was provide them with a generator and invited the minister to visit her home to see the "terrifying" conditions they were enduring. 

She was among several people calling on Energy Minister Miriam Dalli to resign. 

The prolonged outages have prompted growing concern for elderly people, babies, those recovering from surgery, people with disabilities and others who rely on electrically powered medical equipment or medicines that require refrigeration. 

Social media has filled with criticism of the government's handling of the crisis, alongside a steady stream of memes mocking the outages. But for many residents, the humour has been overshadowed by sleepless nights, spoiled food and uncertainty over when power will be restored.