by James Waindi

A series of power blackouts hit the country last night, causing panic and confusion in some areas.

The outages, which began around 6pm in some areas, affected Nairobi, Mombasa, Nyeri, Meru, Eldoret, Nakuru, Kakamega. Busia, Malaba and Sirare among other towns. Other areas affected included Kisii, Kisumu, Kericho, Kitale and Nyahururu.

Power supply to most of the country was down at 6.34pm. Activities in urban centres were paralysed following the outage. It affected operations at Nairobi’s major hospitals, including the busy Kenyatta National Hospital, Pumwani maternity hospital and Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

Kenya Power and Lighting Company spokesman, Migwi Theuri could not be reached for comment. Sources we spoke to said KPLC engineers had not established exact cause of the outages by 9pm. Engineers had traced the problem to Nairobi’s Embakasi power sub-station, which tripped owing a "system overload".

The firm’s customer care desk said the problem could be emanating from the Embakasi which had suffered a mechanical breakdown and noted that engineers were working on the problem and analyzing the issue at the national controls room as well.

"The Embakasi sub-station has suffered a mechanical breakdown and our engineers are working on it," a Mr Solomon at the KPLC customer care desk. "They are analysing the situation at the national controls room."

The blackout brought manufacturing activities at the Industrial Area to a halt and disrupted back-to-work preparations at residential homes. In Nairobi, only buildings with back-up generators had power last night. Most businesses which operate on Sundays such as entertainment joints and restaurants hurriedly closed down. KPLC engineers were said to be working at various power stations in a bid to restore power supply.

This is the second nationwide outage in the last two years. In May 2008, a breakdown at Kamburu power station caused a massive blackout. Last night, power was restored in some areas, but others were in darkness.