Rolling blackouts and water rationing spread as the heatwave holds
STEG chief executive Faycel Trifa attributes the 30-to-45-minute rolling cuts to record air-conditioning load, saying they are meant to relieve individual feeders and avert a nationwide collapse, and urging households to run a single unit. The utility's commercial director Hind Neifer told national radio that STEG can compensate proven appliance damage if claims are filed within 48 hours, and that sensitive sites and health facilities are exempt from the cuts. In a statement dated July 14, the environmental and climate justice unit of the FTDES says the water crisis has moved well beyond the neglected interior: SONEDE has announced disruptions in Ariana and Ben Arous and in Bir Mcherga and Jebel Oust, and nightly shut-offs from midnight to dawn in Sousse, Monastir, Mahdia, Nabeul and Kairouan, while dam filling stands near 60 percent, which the group reads as proof of a management and network failure rather than genuine scarcity, and which has already produced protests and road blockades, notably in Metlaoui.