Over 400 populated localities in Ukraine currently without electricity - Energy Ministry

MOSCOW. Oct 16 (Interfax) - As many as 448 towns and villages in Ukraine remain without electricity for various reasons, Ukrainian media said on Monday, citing the Ukrenergo power grid operator.

Rain and winds partly disrupted power supply to 55 populated localities in the Kirovograd, Kiev, Khmelnitsky and Chernigov regions, Ukrenergo said. A power outage has occurred in the Odessa region for technical reasons.

Meanwhile, gas supply has been restored to 2,700 households in the Kharkov region, the Ukrainian Energy Ministry said. However, gas supply is yet to be resumed to over 4,000 households of the 13,500 that earlier stopped receiving gas after a local gas distribution station was damaged.

A total of 1,500 consumers remain without electricity in the Kherson region as of October 16 after the Kakhovka dam incident earlier this year disrupted power supply to some 15,000 consumers in the region.

There was no commercial electricity import to Ukraine over the weekend, according to data on the ENTSO-E website. On Monday, 10 MWh of electricity will be imported from Moldova between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m.

Meanwhile, electricity exports from Ukraine increased 25% to 3,463 MWh (2,479 MWh to Slovakia and 984 MWh to Moldova) on Monday as compared to Sunday's exports, but are 17.4% lower than on Saturday.