Power outages struck southern Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan on Aug. 14 after an abrupt change in cross-border power flows activated emergency protections and separated parts of the interconnected Central Asian grid, Reuters reported on Aug. 14. Kazakhstan's grid operator KEGOC later said two generators at Kyrgyzstan's Toktogul hydropower plant went offline, overloading Kazakhstan's north-south transmission system and separating its southern grid.