Zambia plunged into darkness as blackout affects almost entire country

Zambia has been plunged into darkness after a blackout affected almost the entire country.

"Almost the whole country except for Southern and Western province has experienced a power failure but we are yet to establish what has caused it," Zesco spokeswoman Bessie Banda told Reuters.

It is the second blackout to hit the country in under two weeks after a technical fault caused an outage on December 11.

Power was only restored the following day.

The country has suffered power shortages because of a searing drought as levels in the Kariba dam - which provides much of the nation's electricity - drop.