Kenya, Uganda plunged into nationwide blackouts
Kenya was plunged into darkness on Tuesday evening after nearly all parts of the country experienced power blackout.
Nation reporters spread across the country have reported that their areas have no power.
In Nairobi CBD near Nation Centre, sounds of diesel generators could be heard from various buildings as landlords sought to keep operation going.
Uganda also reported a similar outage.
We are aware of the wide area outage affecting many areas. Our teams are currently working with @uetcl to establish the cause, resolve it and restore supply ASAP.
Kindly bear with us. @PoliceUg @UegclOfficial .DB
— Umeme Limited (@UmemeLtd) January 9, 2018
Kenya Power said a “power system disturbance led to loss of electricity supply to most parts of Nairobi and adjacent areas”.
However, the blackout was reported as far as Mombasa, Meru and Kisii.
General manager in charge of network management Eng Daniel Tare said the company engineers are battling to identify the fault and restore power supply as quickly as possible, added Kenya Power.
On Twitter, the power distributor was inundated with queries on the blackout and only gave a generic response: “We’re sorry about that. It is a known issue and we hope to have it fixed as soon as possible.”
It added: “Your main line is off due to a fault , issue currently being addressed by our team.”
The problem in Uganda was caused by the situation in Kenya, according to authorities there.
Simon Kasyate, the Uganda Electricity Generation Company Limited spokesperson, told Daily Monitor on phone: “Because of the interconnection with the Kenyan grid, when the problem happened in Kenya, Uganda had to be affected.”
“We have disconnected Uganda from the Kenyan grid so as to connect Uganda independently and as I talk to you now, power is back in some parts of the country,” Mr Kasyate said, adding that other parts should expect back within the shortest time possible.