Artillery fire severely damages important power plant in Benghazi

Artillery fire in Benghazi struck an important power plant that provides electricity for much of the country's east, a security official and an engineer said.

Mussa Suleimani, an engineer at the plant, said that five of the six transformers at the facility were knocked out after it was hit on Friday evening and twice on Saturday.

He added that more power cuts, which have plagued the eastern city, would worsen across the region.

"It is the fifth time in two months that the power station ... has been hit," said Suleimani.

As a result, he said, outages of up to eight hours are expected in an area spanning 500km - from Benghazi to Musaed, a town near the Egyptian border.

"Specialised foreign firms will be needed to repair the transformers that have been damaged, but that will be difficult because of the bad security situation," he said.

A security official blamed "terrorists" for the attack.

"Howitzers were used in the attacks," said Captain Adnan al-Baba, a spokesman for a Libyan anti-terrorism squad.

He said for such guns to hit with precision "someone on the inside must supply the terrorists" with specific coordinates, otherwise "it is impossible to target the power station".

Shelling of the nearby Tawergha camp for displaced killed a woman and wounded nine other people including a child, said Fadia al-Barghathi of the Al-Jalla hospital in Benghazi.

Pro-government forces have fought an array of armed factions, notably Islamists, for control of Libya's second city in the past 18 months.

Libya descended into chaos after the October 2011 ouster and killing of Muammar Gaddafi, with two governments vying for power and armed groups battling over its vast energy resources.