Power blackout leaves Kenya and Uganda in darkness

BT CorrespondentJan 9, 20182 Mins read3.7k

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Kenya’s capital Nairobi and most of its neighbourhood have been plunged in a massive power blackout that has disrupted businesses and office activities. The outage started at about 6pm after several fluctuations in power. Uganda, too, was facing a similar crisis with power cut in most areas of Kampala, it’s capital city.

Kenya Power said the blackout was caused by a power system disturbance that led to loss of electricity to most parts of Nairobi and adjacent areas. As Nairobians went through rush hour without power and braced for a dark night, businesses were already counting losses caused by the disruption, as others had to switch on generators to power their operations.

Kenya Power said in a statement to newsrooms this evening that its technical team was working to restore power supply. The General Manager in charge of network management at Kenya Power, Eng. Daniel Tare, said the company’s engineers “are battling to identify the fault and restore power supply as quickly as possible.”

The Uganda Electricity Transmission Company Limited (UETCL) said on its Twitter handle: ” We are ware of the wide area outage affecting many areas. Our teams are currently working with @uetcl to establish the cause, resolve it and restore power ASAP. Kindly bear with us.”

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The blackout rekindles memories of a similar outage in June 2016 which was attributed to a monkey that reportedly fell “on to a crucial piece of equipment.” The monkey fell on a transformer at the Gitaru hydroelectric power station, according to KenGen.

The transformer then tripped, resulting in the loss of 180 megawatts of energy and triggering a blackout across Kenya. Power was restored almost four hours later and the monkey survived its adventure, but was taken in by Kenya Wildlife Service.

As we went to press most parts of the Nairobi’s central business district had already been engulfed in darkness, with street lights off. It wasn’t clear when power would be restored. Power blackout causes losses to food business especially those that rely solely on main’s electricity. Foods that need refrigeration will likely go bad while medicines too could be spoiled if power is not restored quickly enough.