Cats are renowned for their capacity to wreak havoc, but after leaving some 27,000 people without electricity, one cat's shenanigans must be pushing for a new record.
This feat was achieved Monday by a feline strolling among transformers at a power substation in Crimea's capital Simferopol, the Krymenergo power company announced.
The cat's body reportedly set off an electric discharge that set the roof ablaze.
The ensuing fire left some 8,000 homes without electricity, emergency officials said.
A hospital, a water pump, a boiler station, two schools and two kindergartens were also affected.
The Emergency Situations Ministry said the power grid was fixed by midday Thursday.
No lives appear to have been lost beyond that of the female cat.
"Poor kitty, probably just wanted to get warm," read a typical reader comment on Ukrainian news site 0652.ua.
Despite being annexed by Russian in March, Crimea receives about 80 percent of its power from Ukraine, Russia's state-run TASS news agency recently reported.
Ukrainian authorities said they have no plans to flip the off-switch on the peninsula, which has a long history of blackouts due to its decrepit Soviet-era infrastructure.
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