TEHRAN, July 7 (Xinhua) -- "My mother has to have surgery today, and it will take a few hours. Her hospital is very good, but I am worried, most of all about electricity," Ali, a young student in the southern Iranian city of Shiraz wrote on Twitter, as the country has been suffering from blackouts for weeks.

The situation has worsened since Saturday as Iran was hit by a heatwave, and video images of sudden blackouts in Iranian hospitals and intensive care units have been shared by hundreds on social media, creating distress.

On Tuesday, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani apologized in remarks broadcasted by state TV over the "problems and suffering" faced by the population.

"People complain about power outages, and they are right," Rouhani said, and he explained that power cuts take place automatically in localized areas to prevent the whole network from collapsing, as the country's electricity supply fails to meet demand.

Criticism has emerged regarding the absence of reliable official time schedules for the outages, so people can make plans for their daily activities.

Under temperatures around 40 degrees Celsius during the day in much of the country, the unpredictable outages, that may last between one and ten hours, make daily life hard without air conditioning devices, especially for the elderly and the sick.

"Yesterday when the power went off for the second time, I took the child to the car for a while, so we could freshen up a bit," Yassaman, a middle-class mother from east Tehran told Xinhua.

The power cuts also cause traffic jams and car accidents as stoplights stop working, and a police official warned on Tuesday that the electricity distribution company would be held responsible.

"In the event of accidents leading to injuries or death, if police experts establish a causal link between the accident and the lack of electricity and the interruption of the intersection light, part of the blame for the accident will go to the electricity company," Eynollah Jahani, deputy for social affairs at Iran's traffic police said, as quoted by official daily Hamshahri.

Students also complained that they cannot properly prepare for their university entrance exams, which are taking place these days.

"Today, from 5 p.m. to 20 p.m., where will the power not go off so can I go there and take my online exam?!" Elham, a PhD student in British Studies asked her followers on social media on Wednesday.

As for the reasons for the blackouts, authorities pointed to a surging demand, along with low rainfall reducing hydroelectric output and illegal cryptocurrency mining farms benefitting from subsidised power supply.

Reza Sharifi, a PhD in electrical engineering and an assistant professor at the West Tehran branch of Islamic Azad University, wrote on Twitter that one of the main reasons for the power shortage is the ongoing heatwave, which reduces the efficiency of thermal and gas power plants, since a large part of their output is used in the cooling systems of power plants themselves.

Years of U.S. sanctions against Iran, the engineer noted, have additionally prevented a proper maintenance of Iranian power plants, and have hampered the needed investment in the construction of new plants and transmission and distribution networks.

Worn-out network components cannot be replaced easily, Sharifi added.

Under normal circumstances, Iranian technicians would compensate the supply deficit in peak hours using water reserves in dams to generate electricity, but due to the decrease in rainfall this year, Iran's water situation is "critical," Sharifi wrote.

On Tuesday, Iran's Power Generation and Distribution Company instructed distribution branches to limit the power supply to steel and cement companies up to a maximum of 10 percent of their usual demand for a period of two weeks, in order to guarantee the stability of the network, state TV reported.

Iran's First Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri briefed reporters after a meeting with officials of the energy ministry about other measures decided by the government to guarantee essential services and take power cuts endured by home subscribers to a minimum.

Elaborating on the measures, Jahangiri said Iran's energy ministry has ordered not to cut off the power supply to hospitals, and added that the licenses of cryptocurrency miners who continue to operate under current circumstances will be revoked. Enditem

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