At least 130 million people in Bangladesh were without power on Tuesday after a grid outage caused widespread blackouts, the government’s power company said.

Bangladesh has suffered a major electricity crisis in recent months as a result of higher global energy prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and has imposed regular cuts to conserve electricity.

However, it remained unclear what caused Tuesday’s unplanned power outage, which hit more than 80 percent of the country just after 2:00 p.m. (0800 GMT), according to the Power Development Board.

Apart from a few places in north-west Bangladesh, “the rest of the country is without electricity,” spokesman Shamim Ahsan told AFP.

The normally brightly lit streets of central Dhaka and other cities were dark on Tuesday evening.

Ahsan said 130 million people or more were without power and it remained unclear what caused the fault.

“It’s still under investigation,” he said, adding that a technical glitch was the likely cause.

Another official later said only 60 percent of the poor country, home to factories supplying garments for Western brands, was affected.

Since then, the power supply has been restored for half of those affected by the evening, said ABM Badruddoza, spokesman for the state power grid company, the AFP news agency.

Deputy Technology Minister Zunaid Palak said on Facebook that power would be restored by 8 p.m. in the capital Dhaka, a megacity of more than 22 million people.

Energy prices, as well as food and other staples, have skyrocketed around the world, including in Asia, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February.

This has wreaked havoc on Bangladesh’s power grid in recent months as utilities struggle to source enough diesel and gas to meet demand.

A depreciating currency and dwindling foreign exchange reserves meant Bangladesh was unable to import enough fossil fuels, forcing it to shut down diesel power plants and shut down some gas-fired power plants.

The government imposed protracted power outages in July to conserve existing supplies, with outages lasting up to 13 hours a day at their peak.

Tens of thousands of mosques in the Muslim-majority South Asian country have been urged to limit the use of air conditioning to ease pressure on the power grid.

The power outages sparked widespread public anger and helped mobilize large demonstrations on the streets of Dhaka.

At least three protesters were killed by security forces during the rallies, motivated in part by rising pressure on the cost of living.

According to the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, around 100 other people were injured when the police cracked down on a demonstration.

Consumer inflation has hit household budgets hard, and the government recently pledged to cap the price of several staples, including rice, to quell public discontent.

Bangladesh last experienced a major unplanned power outage in November 2014, when around 70 percent of the country was without power for nearly 10 hours.