Power outage resulted from Short
circuit at Juja substation
Updated 19 hr(s) 5 min(s) ago
By Cyrus Ombati
A number of major urban centres
around the country were on Saturday
night thrown into darkness following
a power blackout.
The blackout, which started at around
9.45pm went on until about Sunday
1am in the affected areas. But other
places had not received normal power
supply by Sunday afternoon.
This affected many businesses in the
affected areas, which depend on
power. Homesteads were either not
spared as callers said food was going
bad in their freezers.
Kenya Power spokesman Migwi Theuri
attributed the blackout to a short
circuit on a high voltage line at the
Juja substation in Nairobi.
"A short circuit on a major supply line
at the Juja substation in Nairobi
caused supply interruption that
affected parts of Nairobi this evening,"
read part of a statement sent from the
firm.
The statement added the Mt. Kenya
Region, the West Region and most
parts of the Rift Valley were not
affected by the outage.
The station is one of the major
sources of power supply to the city
and its environs.
The engineers were working to restore
supply, he said, and added that the
process was gradual.
A spot check around the country
established that there was no
electricity in major towns including
Nairobi, Kisumu, Kakamega,
Mombasa, Meru, Kisii, Eldoret, Thika,
Nyamira, and Kericho.
Police said no major or extraordinary
incident was reported in the period.
However, police were mobilized and
told to be on alert.
Their operations were affected as they
rely on power to ensure their
operations are on their
communication channels.
They resorted to batteries and mobile
phones in co-ordinating the work.