Playing electrical Russian roulette
‘Not everybody in military-ruled Myanmar is cursing the blackouts.
Thieves in the former Burma’s main city, Yangon, are taking advantage of outages often lasting for more than 20 hours a day to steal the copper power cables, police said on Friday.
Sometimes, of course, they get unlucky.
“The thieves are risking their lives as it is impossible to know exactly when the power is going to be restored. It’s just like playing Russian roulette,” said one Yangon police officer who did not want to be named.
“I’ve seen a few cases in which thieves were electrocuted. In April, a 16-year-old boy was found dead, holding a broken cable from a lamppost. Only God knows for sure whether he was a thief or not.”‘
