An Azerbaijani-controlled section of the high-voltage transmission line coming to Karabakh from Armenia was knocked down on January 9 almost one month after Baku blocked commercial traffic through the Lachin corridor.
Karabakh’s leadership responded by restricting energy consumption and introducing daily power cuts. It was left to rely only on electricity generated by six hydroelectric plants that met less than a third of the Armenian-populated territory’s energy needs before the blockade. Baku’s subsequent disruption of Armenia’s gas supply to Karabakh further increased the load on the local energy network
The Sarsang reservoir located in the northern Martakert district supplies water to by far the biggest of Karabakh’s power plants. Aerial images publicized by the Karabakh premier, Gurgen Nersisian, over the weekend show that Sarsang has shrunk by more than half since the beginning of January due to the increased use of its water.
“Currently, Sarsang's water resources have reached a critical limit of about 88 million cubic meters (about 15 per cent of the total capacity), approaching the ‘dead’ (unusable) volume of about 70 million cubic meters,” Nersisian said in a Facebook post.
“This situation not only puts at risk the prospect of electricity supply for the population of Artsakh and deepens their daily suffering but has also resulted in a significant negative impact on the environment,” he wrote, warning of a “humanitarian catastrophe” in Karabakh.
Nersisian said the international community should take “immediate measures to make Azerbaijan abandon such medieval, terrorist and cruel behavior.”
The United States, the European Union and Russia have repeatedly urged Azerbaijan to end the four-month blockade which has also led to serious shortages of food, medicine and other essential items in Karabakh.
Baku has dismissed those calls. It went farther late last month, setting up an official checkpoint on the sole highway connecting Karabakh to Armenia. The Armenian side condemned the tightening of the blockade as another gross violation of a Russian-brokered agreement that stopped the 2020 Armenian-Azerbaijani war.