RIYADH, Aug 23: A nation wide power failure on Monday left Bahrainis snarled in rush hour traffic and without air conditioning. With high summer temperatures and high and humidity, living without airconditioners working is unimaginable in this part of the world.

The power failure created a lot chaos. Traffic signals were not operating and intersections were being manned by policemen, under the scorching sun. Long cues of vehicles were seen at almost all the major intersections because of this.

Work had come to standstill in most of the industries and work places. Workers were seen standing out in airy places in the shade. A large number of people were seen rushing to nearby Al-Khobar in Saudi Arabia and long queues were seen at the King Fahd Causeway to enter Al-Khobar.

Bahrainis and other GCC national do not require visas to enter Saudi Arabia. Al-Khobar is hardly 25 Kilometres from Bahrain across the causeway. A spokeswoman for the electricity department said the cause was a 'technical fault' in a distribution control facility located just outside Manama.

She said that technicians were working to gradually restore power. Some parts of Bahrain were reporting that power was back about four hours after the outage began at about 8:30am.