List of Nairobi estates to experience power outage

Kenya Power officers working at a site. [File, Standard]

Nairobi central business district, Westlands, Embakasi, Kilimani and Lang’ata are some of the areas in the capital city which experienced a power blackout a better part of Wednesday, January 12.

This comes barely 24 hours after a major outage hit the country on Tuesday.

Other areas affected by the Wednesday electricity disruption are Kitengela, Athi River, Industrial Area, Jamhuri, Kileleshwa, Hurlingham and Syokimau.

Kenya Power said a technical fault on the Suswa-Embakasi high voltage transmission power line caused the outage.

“Engineers from the Kenya Electricity Transmission Company Limited (KETRACO) are on-site to repair the line and pave way for the restoration of normal power supply by 5pm,” the power firm tweeted at 1:15pm Wednesday.

The latest power disruption comes after four pylons on the Kiambere-Embakasi high voltage transmission line collapsed on Tuesday, plunging many parts of the country into a blackout.

Some of the areas that were affected by the blackout include Nairobi, Western Kenya, Mt. Kenya Region, North Rift, South Nyanza and Central Rift.

The outage that lasted more than four hours disrupted several businesses countrywide, leading to some companies incurring losses to the tune of millions of shillings.

A Mombasa-based glass manufacturer estimated that it had lost over Sh4 million following the power outage at the port city.

Milly Group of Companies Vice Chairman Rashid Mohamed said 50,000 tonnes of melted raw material for making glass was destroyed after the power went off.  

The power cuts caused a storm on social media, particularly micro-blogging site Twitter, where Kenyans took to express their anger.

One of the hard questions Kenya Power has not addressed thus far is what caused the towers on Kiambere-Embakasi high voltage transmission line to fall, despite there being no spectacular storms, winds or earthquakes experienced on Tuesday.