ELECTRICITY BLACKOUTS HIT ZIMBABWE About 90% of Zimbabwe on Wednesday night to Thursday suffered a 24 hour power blackout. Various parts of the country started losing power from Wednesday around 8 pm and by 5 am Thursday morning almost the whole country was in a blackout. Power was only fully restored in almost all the areas of the country by 8 pm Thursday. According to a statement issued by the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) all of the countrys major power stations unbelievably encountered faults at about the same time. The three power stations failed to generate power for the greater part of Wednesday evening, leaving only Bulawayo and Munyati thermal power stations in operation. These are Kariba Hydro-Power Station which has an installed capacity of 750 mega watts, Hwange Power Station with an installed capacity of 920 mega watts and Harare Power Station which has an installed capacity of 90 mega watts. Zimbabweans from all over the country inundated local media houses with calls enquiring what was happening to the power supply. Staff of the electricity supply authority sounded not so kin to co-operate with callers who were calling the utility to confirm if it was true that the black out was indeed nation wide and what had caused it. Speaking to the ZBC, ZESA Holdings Group Public Relations Manager Fullard Gwasira said the loss of electricity generation from power stations was due to a power system disturbance that originated from outside the country’s borders a statement which has remained doubtful with many people. Reports from the power company said the Kariba Hydro-Power Station was restored early Thursday morning, while the other two stations were restored mid morning. However reports from the public showed that some areas like Mberengwa, Gwanda to Beitbridge only received power supply as late at 8 pm on Thursday night. This is not the first time that Zimbabwe has suffered unexplained nationwide power failures, the last of which was in February this year.-Online
Posted on: Fri, 30 May 2014 15:56:10 +0000
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