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Zim faces severe new threat
24/01/2008 12:57 - (SA)
Harare - Zimbabwe faced a severe new threat to its crippled electricity supplies after coal production for the country's major thermal power station broke down following a power cut, state media reported on Thursday.
The government-owned Hwange Colliery Company stopped mining coal on Monday after a power outage, said the state-controlled daily Herald newspaper. The colliery was the sole supplier of coal to the adjacent 1 200 megawatt Hwange thermal power station in north-west Zimbabwe, the country's largest power station.
Zimbabwe had been reeling under a series of nationwide power cuts since Saturday after cities were blacked out repeatedly for hours.
The blackouts were the worst in the past two years, during which continual power cuts had become a way of life in Zimbabwean homes and companies.
Hwange Colliery Company spokesperson Burzil Dube said: "Most operations have been stopped. This has greatly affected coal output."
Economic crisis accelerates
It was the first power outage in two years at the colliery, which was usually exempted from power cuts on the crippled national electricity grid.
However, coal production had been repeatedly interrupted by breakdowns in equipment and machinery. The colliery had been producing 30 000 tons of coking coal a month, against a target of 50 000 tons.
Although the colliery sat on a coalfield with an estimated life of 5 000 years, it struggled to meet national demand.
The Herald said it had been unable to obtain comment from the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority, the state-run power utility, "as most trunk and cell phones were also down due to the power outages".
All utilities and infrastructure services were failing to deliver as the country's economic crisis accelerated to new depths of dislocation.
Maintenance of the country's major trunk roads and urban roads came to a halt, leaving them pitted with deep, dangerous potholes.
Water supplies in the capital had been largely non-existent for nearly two weeks. The high court in Harare had been closed since Tuesday because it had had no water and could be a health hazard, court master Charles Nyatanga said on Thursday.
ZESA's power stations had been crippled by a critical lack of finance, largely because President Robert Mugabe's government forced it to charge uneconomic tariffs, with the result that the company could not pay for maintenance, spares and equipment.
Sapa-dpa
- SAPA
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