Power outages are now lasting up to three days in a row in Zambia, where power generation was hit by a severe drought.
Only some 43% of Zambia are connected to the grid in a country that relies on a giant dam for electricity generation.
The Kariba dam on the Zimbzei river saw filling rates decline following the El Nino-triggered drought leaving the country struggling with outages at a large scale.
Zambia sources up to 84% of its electricity from water reservoirs such as lakes and rivers, while only 13% comes from coal, according to figures cited in a BBC report.
In the face of this crisis, calls mounted on the government to diversify energy sources by investing in renewable energies, coal and nuclear plants.