Large parts of Tanzania were plunged into darkness on Saturday following a massive system failure across the national electricity grid.

According to a report by the state-owned power utility, Tanesco, the widespread outage was caused by a sudden technical failure within the transmission network. While the utility confirmed the blackout, it withheld further technical details regarding the root cause of the system collapse or a definitive timeline for full restoration.

The infrastructure collapse has renewed sharp criticism regarding the stability, maintenance, and reliability of the country’s distribution networks. According to official energy data, Tanzania boasts an installed generation capacity of 4 383 megawatts against a peak national demand of 2 100 megawatts, proving that despite excess power generation, aging infrastructure remains highly vulnerable to catastrophic failures.

–ChannelAfrica–