London
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South Africa's Eskom announces further power cuts / Photo: Phill Magakoe - AFP
South Africa's Eskom announces further power cuts
South Africa, a country plagued by power shortages, on Tuesday imposed the the toughest electricity rationing in two and a half years after labour disputes disrupted production at several plants.
Power rationing to consumers was ramped up to so-called Stage 6 load-shedding to prevent countrywide blackouts.
Stage 6 means that South Africans will now experience multiple cuts per day, each lasting several hours.
Africa's leading industrialised country last experienced such drastic outages in December 2019.
"There is a high risk that the stage of load-shedding may have to change at any time, depending on the state of the plant," power utility Eskom said in a statement.
Power cuts are a major source of frustration and discontent in South Africa, where protests broke out near Eskom's offices last year.
(A.Lehmann--BBZ)
