On August 14, 2026, Almaty and the Almaty region were hit by a massive blackout. The city came to a standstill: traffic lights went dark, and water supply stopped due to halted pumping stations. The cause of the outages was investigated by Kursiv LifeStyle, as reported by infohub.kz.
According to Alatau Zharyk Kompaniyasy (AZhK), the accident occurred on power lines owned by KEGOC at 14:38. The company's anti-emergency automation systems (SAON, AChR) were triggered, leading to power cuts for consumers in the city and region.
Four districts of Almaty lost electricity: Bostandyk, Nauryzbai, Auezov, and Alatau. Additionally, outages were reported in the Zhetysu district. In the Almaty region, power was cut in the Zhambyl, Balkhash, Esik, Karasai, Shelek, Raiymbek, Uighur, Ili, Kegen, and Talgar districts.
No information is yet available on when power supply will be restored. On social media, some jokingly suggested that the outages were caused by the upcoming Kanye West concert, but AZhK did not confirm this, stating they have no data on the technical parameters or energy consumption of the event.
Earlier, Kursiv reported on planned power outages in Almaty in August.