Colombo, March 13 (IANS): A nationwide power failure was reported in Sri Lanka on Sunday, the third to hit the island within six months.

Anura Wijepala, chairman of the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB), told Xinhua news agency that the exact reason for Sunday's outage could not be immediately ascertained and engineers were working to restore power.

"At the moment, we do not know what is wrong. Our engineers are working on it," Wijepala said.

Sunday's power failure is the third to be reported since the new government came to power in a parliamentary election in August last year.

The first power failure was reported in September 2015 due to a technical fault at the CEB, followed by another one on February 25.

Power and Energy Minister Ranjith Siyambalapitiya said last month's power cut was due to a lightning strike on one of the main electricity lines in the capital.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has called for an immediate probe into the repeated power failures and appointed two special committees to look into the matter and submit their reports soonest.