News / National
Major power failure hits Harare
27 Dec 2010 at 22:53hrs | Views
MOST of Harare was blacked out yesterday afternoon when the main feed into the city suffered a fault just before lunch, hitting hundreds of thousands of people and knocking out most restaurants, hotels and bars, including those in the city centre, usually immune from load shedding.
Zesa Holdings engineers started bringing power back up shortly before 6pm, in time for supper for most residents.
Most residents thought the fault was just normal load-shedding for their area, but those driving across the city found no traffic lights working and saw the resulting accidents.
Many Internet services were also hit as the back-up power supplies at the Internet service providers, most of them in the south east of the city centre, started running out a few hours after the fault.
An official at Zesa's fault centre in the Avenues said heavy rain had knocked out the Colford 132 kilovolt line.
"The fault was reported from the Colford 132kv main supply, which affected the Hillside and Manica feeders," the official said.
The two feeders, the official said, supply most parts of Harare. He said engineers had been working as quickly as possible on restoring power to the affected areas and most hit areas saw power being restored late yesterday afternoon and evening.
The fault comes barely some days after swathes of the city were hit by another blackout after a fault on the 33kv transformer and Ruwa feeder last Wednesday.
Most affected areas were the CBD, Highlands, Ruwa, Hillside and parts of Eastlea and Zesa also attributed it to the heavy downpour in some parts of the country.
Zesa has previously said faults would be common during the rainy season and urged consumers to contact the Zimbabwe Electricity Distribution Company's customer service centres when they suspected power outages were a fault, not load-shedding.
The power utility also advised the public to stop tampering with electricity networks and infrastructure as well as to safeguard their lives against electrocution.
ZBC yesterday reported that Mutare lost power after a lighting bolt struck the Orange Groo-ve 133/33kV substation early yesterday morning.
Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company, a subsidiary of Zesa Holdings, was quoted as saying the lighting bolt struck two transformers around 3am at the station.
The lighting strike on the transformers resul-ted in the loss of power supplies to Mutare, Nyanga and surrounding areas.
Zesa Holdings engineers started bringing power back up shortly before 6pm, in time for supper for most residents.
Most residents thought the fault was just normal load-shedding for their area, but those driving across the city found no traffic lights working and saw the resulting accidents.
Many Internet services were also hit as the back-up power supplies at the Internet service providers, most of them in the south east of the city centre, started running out a few hours after the fault.
An official at Zesa's fault centre in the Avenues said heavy rain had knocked out the Colford 132 kilovolt line.
"The fault was reported from the Colford 132kv main supply, which affected the Hillside and Manica feeders," the official said.
The two feeders, the official said, supply most parts of Harare. He said engineers had been working as quickly as possible on restoring power to the affected areas and most hit areas saw power being restored late yesterday afternoon and evening.
Most affected areas were the CBD, Highlands, Ruwa, Hillside and parts of Eastlea and Zesa also attributed it to the heavy downpour in some parts of the country.
Zesa has previously said faults would be common during the rainy season and urged consumers to contact the Zimbabwe Electricity Distribution Company's customer service centres when they suspected power outages were a fault, not load-shedding.
The power utility also advised the public to stop tampering with electricity networks and infrastructure as well as to safeguard their lives against electrocution.
ZBC yesterday reported that Mutare lost power after a lighting bolt struck the Orange Groo-ve 133/33kV substation early yesterday morning.
Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company, a subsidiary of Zesa Holdings, was quoted as saying the lighting bolt struck two transformers around 3am at the station.
The lighting strike on the transformers resul-ted in the loss of power supplies to Mutare, Nyanga and surrounding areas.
Source - Byo24
