Iranians left without power as regime uses electricity to mine Bitcoin

Lake Urmia in Iran was once the second-largest saltwater lake in the world.

- Ruth Michaelson & Sima Ghadirzadeh

The former tourist spot is now miles of salt-encrusted marshland ringed by ghost towns of hotels - and by the end of this summer experts fear it will be completely dry.

A record drought and a nationwide water crisis have been compounded by an electricity shortage in Iran, heightened by the hot summer months where temperatures can easily reach 40C. Government buildings across Tehran now regularly shut down for days to conserve energy, while office workers in the capital complain at being forced to endure the heat without air conditioning.

The punishing energy crisis has pushed small but vocal groups of disgruntled citizens to demonstrate. In the coastal town of Babolsar, people gathered outside a power station to protest against the constant outages, while video circulated on social media showing medics inside the local hospital fanning themselves in the sweltering heat and total darkness of a chemotherapy ward without power.

Angry citizens as well as experts blame government mismanagement: video from the northern city of Rasht showed a small group chanting “water, electricity, life - these are our indisputable rights” and “death to incompetence”.