Power blackout leaves Easterners devastated

Sat, 26 Nov 2016 13:52:39 +0000

FOODSTUFFS worth thousands of Kwacha have gone to waste in many homes in Eastern Province following a massive power outage that paralyzed five provinces this week. Chieftainess Nyanje of the Nsenga speaking people said due to non-availability of power, food stored in refrigerators went to waste, ‘‘not to talk about lack of clean water since we had no electricity to run the pumps’’. In interview at her palace yesterday, the traditional leader said the sudden blackout had affected everyone in Eastern Province, in towns and rural areas.

“The days that the province had had no power, the situation truly devastated people as it destroyed a lot of things; water tanks dried out and a lot of foodstuffs in fridges went bad.   “The absence of electricity for the few days destroyed a lot of things and the unfortunate part is that this scenario has not only affected us in rural areas but the towns as well,” she said. She said hundreds of Mozambicans who brought their maize to Nyanje for gridding were stuck because there was no power to run the mills. “There are those who buy foodstuffs in bulk and these went to waste.

It is a big loss to many of them. All of us were affected in various ways during the absence of power in the region,” said Chief Nyanje. The traditional leader said the blackout closed down many businesses and hundreds of customers were left stranded.

“Currently my area is full of our friends from Mozambique who want to grind their maize and have found themselves in such a predicament. They came with nothing and now the owners of hammer mills are the ones feeding them as their customers. “Worse still they do not want to go back to their country since they don’t know when power will be restored. Some families have been hit by hunger because mealie meal has finished and institutions like schools and hospitals are also affected in differently ways,’’ she said.   Zesco only managed to restore power to Eastern, Luapula, Northern, Muchinga and some parts of Central province on Thursday around 21 hours.