Kenya on Saturday, May 9th, experienced a nationwide power blackout that lasted for at least five hours.
Power went off at 5.49 am following what Kenya Power termed as “system disturbance in the transmission grid network.”
“Our engineers are working to identify and address the hitch, towards restoring normal electricity supply. We wish to apologize to our customers for the inconvenience caused,” Kenya Power said in a statement.
In a follow-up statement, the company explained that a conductor came off support insulators and fell on a tower, leading to power loss.
“The fault, which occurred near Kiambu Town, led to power loss on the critical power line, thus overloading other power generators countrywide,” Kenya Power Network Manager Engineer Charles Mwaura stated.
This was the second countrywide power blackout in Kenya after the first one in 2016, which was blamed on a monkey that allegedly scaled onto the roof of Gitaru Power Station and fell on a transformer.
On Saturday, a similar blackout was experienced in neighboring Uganda, whose power grid is interconnected with that of Kenya.
Uganda Electricity Transmission Company Limited, Umeme, said: “We have lost transmission across the nation which has caused a nationwide blackout, please bear with us as we investigate the cause and work on restoration.”
