/ 22 January 2008

Zambia hit by fresh nationwide power failure

Zambia was hit by a new nationwide power failure late on Monday, the second in 48 hours.

The entire country was plunged into darkness at about 5.30pm GMT and partial supplies were only restored on Tuesday to critical areas, such as hospitals and military installations, said Rhodnie Sisala, managing director of the state-run Zambia Electricity Supply Company.

”We are still trying to establish the cause of the blackout. We cannot state the cause at the moment without carrying out investigations,” Sisala said.

On Saturday, the country was hit by a major blackout, which left about 400 miners trapped in three copper mines in the central Copperbelt province.

Oswell Munyenyembe, secretary general of the mineworkers’ union, said the miners were only evacuated on Sunday morning after power was restored by tapping into energy supplies from the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The Energy Regulation Board of Zambia has summoned Sisala and his management to explain the cause of the blackouts, which have also affected most commercial activities in the Southern African nation.

Zambia, which generated its electricity from three hydro power stations, currently imports power from its northern neighbour, the DRC, to meet shortages.

One of three, the Kariba dam, jointly shared with Zimbabwe, is shut.

Chinese experts are currently helping to upgrade Zambia’s power-generation capacity.

Its generation capacity stands at around 1 000MW but needs to increase output to about 4 500MW by 2010.

Zambia used to export power to East Africa, Zimbabwe and South Africa. — Sapa-AFP