By Staff Reporter
ZESA HOLDINGS has said power supplies had been restored to most parts of the country by yesterday evening following a nationwide power outage in the afternoon affecting Hwange and Kariba power stations.
A statement issued by the power utility said a technical fault resulted in a loss of power generation from the two major power stations and further disrupted interconnections with National Transmission (South Africa) and ZESCO (Zambia), as well as supply from HCB (Mozambique), all of which were lost simultaneously.
Zimbabwe derives the bulk of its electricity from these two main stations, supplementing the shortfall with imports from regional power producers.
Buzzing sounds of generators filled the air in central business districts of Harare, Bulawayo and other towns鈥 affected areas from the afternoon as supermarkets, fast food outlets and businesses heavily reliant on electricity turned to backup power to remain operational after the blackout.
In Harare, traffic jams were experienced immediately after the outage just after 2pm as drivers showed once again that they cannot give each other way in the absence of traffic lights.
As night fell and darkness enveloped Bulawayo, motorists struggled to navigate the streets due to non-functioning traffic lights while a few major shops powered by generators provided limited lighting for pedestrians making their way to taxi ranks for transport home.
A senior employee at a top retailer in Bulawayo said their generator kicked in shortly after 2pm when the electricity went out.
鈥淲e didn鈥檛 expect the blackout to last for hours. Our generators consume a lot of diesel, which is costly to run continuously, but we had no choice otherwise we would lose perishables such as meat, milk, yoghurt and other food items,鈥 said the employee on condition of anonymity.
In its official statement, ZESA confirmed that the loss of power generation at Kariba and Hwange Power Stations had plunged the country into darkness, but reassured the nation that restoration efforts were underway.
鈥淭he system disturbance occurred at 2pm today, Thursday 3 July,鈥 ZESA said.
鈥淭his resulted in a loss of generation at both Kariba and Hwange Power Stations.
鈥淚n addition, interconnections with National Transmission (South Africa), ZESCO (Zambia) and HCB (Mozambique) were also simultaneously lost.鈥
The power utility added that electricity had been restored in some areas by late afternoon.
鈥淩estoration efforts are ongoing, and power has already been successfully restored to some areas. Our teams are working tirelessly to bring the remaining affected areas back online in the shortest possible time,鈥 said the utility.
Harare CBD had power restored around 5pm, bringing some modicum of normalcy on the roads after congestion.