Power back on Zanzibar
23rd June 2008
There’s good news from Zanzibar after electricity was restored to the archipelago following a month-long power cut.
An underwater electric cable supplying power from mainland Tanzania had been damaged by a power surge.
This led to businesses, including hotels and restaurants, having to use diesel generators to power lights and fridges.
The lack of power also meant that baggage-screening facilities at Zanzibar’s main airport haven’t been working. Instead, security officials have been searching luggage by hand, leading to long queues.
It was estimated that the work to repair the cable would take anything between a month and three months.
However, United Nations experts flew in ten days ago to help with the repair work. Power was restored over the weekend, although it’s unclear whether there will be more outages in the near future.
UNICEF has provided 12 back-up generators to help restore water pumps.