Kenya on Thursday evening plunged into darkness after suffering a nationwide power blackout. The power blackout occurred a few minutes to 6pm local time.

The blackout affected critical services and left the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in darkness. However, the generator was initiated after a while.

Among the affected areas were Nairobi, Nakuru, Nyandarua, Mombasa , Murang’a were among the affected areas.

In a statement that was released on shortly after the blackout, Kenya Power said that power outage affecting many parts of the country had occurred due to a ‘system disturbance’.

“At 5:40 PM (EAT) today, Thursday, 2nd May 2024, we experienced a system disturbance on the grid, resulting in power supply disruption in most parts of the country,” the Kenya Power announced.

JKIA plunges into yet another embarrassing blackout

“We regret any inconvenience caused and urge for patience from our customers as we work towards restoring normal power supply at the earliest opportunity. We will issue an update on the progress of the power restoration exercise within two hours.”

This is not the first time that Kenya is plunging into darkness due to a power blackout. Over the past few months, nationwide power outages have become frequent, the previous outage having occurred in December.

The Ministry of Energy blamed that outage nationwide on what it termed as an overload. “The overload witnessed along the Kisumu -Muhuroni line which only carries 80 mega watts. Yesterday the line was carrying 149 Megawatts,” Energy Cabinet Secretary Davis Chirchir had said. The CS further proposed that the ministry would start load shedding.

“The gist of it is lack of investment in the network for a long time. The country has not had investments for the power transmission system networks for over six years.Government waiting for taxes to build the networks is what has caused this problem,” he said.