COLOMBO: Sri Lanka suffered a power outage when a monkey came in contact with the power grid at a Colombo suburb on Sunday, a power official said.

The entire grid failed around 11:30 am (local time) and the power was restored after several hours, the official said.

Some areas were without for more than five hours, the official said.

"A monkey came into contact with a substation of the power grid at Panadura," Power Minister Kumara Jayakodi told the media.

The state power entity restored power at the national hospital and other key installations after an hour of the outage, the minister said.

The official said people were warned that drinking water supplies could be badly affected.