Yesterday, a rare thing happened in Kenya. We are usually accustomed to the planned power outages for maintenance and localized outages when there is a fault. This time around,there was a countrywide blackout that lasted for hours and of course people kept on asking Kenya Power on social media about the situation. They later on gave an update of the extent of the problem and the action being done to rectify it.
We are having a national blackout, restoration is in progress and we have managed to restore Western parts of the country. ^SW
— Kenya Power (@KenyaPower_Care) June 7, 2016
We still didn’t understand the root cause of the problem until Kenya Power released a presser about the actual cause of the blackout.
Apparently, there was a fault on Gitaru power station, which is among the several ones on Tana River and actually generates the most power in comparison. KenGen is the state parastatal that is tasked with the responsibility of generating power for the country and later on were able to give a conclusive reason why there was a blackout of this magnitude.
It reads:
At 1129 hours this morning, a monkey climbed on the roof of Gitaru Power station and dropped onto a transformer tripping it. This caused other machines at the power station to trip on overload resulting in a loss of more than 180MW from this plant which triggered a national power blackout…
This news of a monkey causing a power blackout in the country was the talk on social media since an action by a rogue animal could actually make the entire country have a blackout was too good to pass it out.
National blackout : Kengen says it was monkey business. pic.twitter.com/TH2yfK1uqH
— FERDINAND OMONDI (@FerdyOmondi) June 7, 2016
The monkey that is responsible for causing the blackout has denied any wrongdoing. which means it will be elected into parliament in 2017
— Dee (@Dee_spicable) June 7, 2016
guys are astonished coz a monkey caused a nation wide blackout, look at all the monkeys in parliament causing a nation wide non development
— Verified (@njiiru) June 7, 2016
Checking how your stocks are performing then you come across a K/Power statement blaming u for a national blackout pic.twitter.com/zmDXQqMv6L
— Mohamed Wehliye (@WehliyeMohamed) June 7, 2016
For the first time in decades Kenya power admits that monkeys run the show…
— Kikuyu Somali (@bettywaitherero) June 7, 2016
People are surprised that a Monkey put off the entire Electricity Grid in Kenya. In Uganda Termites almost ate the National Budget Papers ??
— R.I.P Julie (@Nuwaha17) June 8, 2016
Yes, one monkey with a wrench, throws a spanner in the works…. ??? https://t.co/ntl7MG3Qu6
— Patrick Njoroge (@njorogep) June 7, 2016
The story has been quoted by major publications around the world and is quickly becoming a popular news item. If you were wondering if the monkey is alive, KenGen confirmed it on their Facebook page within that the monkey is alive and was taken by the KWS. Well, this was indeed a rare reason for a national blackout and we will probably not see one like it ever again.
