Sri Lanka has suspended sales of fuel for non-essential vehicles as it faces its worst economic crisis in decades.
For the next two weeks, only buses, trains and vehicles used for medical services and transporting food will be allowed to fill up with fuel.
Schools in urban areas have shut, while officials have told the country’s 22 million residents to work from home.
The South Asian nation is in talks over a bailout deal as it struggles to pay for imports such as fuel and food.
Sri Lanka is the first country to take the drastic step in halting sales of fuel to ordinary people “since the 1970s oil crisis, when fuel was rationed in the US and Europe and speed limits introduced to reduce demand”, Nathan Piper, head of oil and gas research at Investec, said.
He said the ban underlined the steep rise in oil pricing and limited foreign exchange reserves in Sri Lanka.
Many of the island’s residents don’t know how they will cope without fuel. There have been long queues at filling stations across Sri Lanka in recent months.
Drivers have now been asked to go home, with tokens distributed aimed at rationing scarce fuel stocks. Some kept queuing, but others couldn’t.
With an economy hit hard by the pandemic, rising energy prices and populist tax cuts, Sri Lanka lacks enough foreign currency to pay for imports of essential goods.
Acute shortages of fuel, food and medicines have helped to push the cost of living to record highs in the country, where many people rely on motor vehicles for their livelihoods.
On Monday, the government said it would ban private vehicles from buying petrol and diesel until 10 July.
Cabinet spokesperson Bandula Gunewardena said Sri Lanka had “never faced such a severe economic crisis in its history”.
The cash-strapped country has also sent officials to the major energy producers Russia and Qatar in a bid to secure cheap oil supplies.
Over the weekend, officials said the country had only 9,000 tonnes of diesel and 6,000 tonnes of petrol to fuel essential services in the coming days.
It has been estimated that the stocks would last for less than a week under regular demand.