By APA News

HARARE: Most of Zimbabwe was without electricity on Wednesday as Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) engineers raced to restore the system following a “major disturbance” on the national grid.

ZESA said in a notice to customers that its “national grid experienced a system disturbance this morning at 0938 hours, resulting in the loss of generation at Hwange Power Station.”

“This has resulted in increased load curtailment across the country,” the state-run power utility said.

It added: “Our engineers are working flat out to ensure restoration of service in the shortest possible time.”

The outage affected businesses and individual consumers who had to resort to power generators and solar systems.

The impact is particularly severe given the country’s ongoing struggles with regular power blackouts.

Zimbabwe has faced perennial power shortages over the last two decades. These shortages have been attributed to a combination of factors, including low water levels in Kariba Dam that supplies the Kariba hydropower station as well as antiquated equipment.

The country’s power generation capacity has progressively dwindled over the years, unable to keep pace with the growing demand spurred by demographic and economic growth.