Over 200 electrocuted-ZERA

Harare (New Ziana) – A total of 209 people were electrocuted in the country in the last seven years in 400 electricity-related accidents, an official of the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (Zera) said on Wednesday.

But engineer Man’arai Ndovori said the cases were probably higher as some fatal accidents involving electricity were not reported.

The electrocutions, some of which involve electricity cable thieves, make up 54 percent of people who lose their lives due to electricity accidents in the country.

Ndovori was speaking at a stakeholders’ meeting in Harare.

“Kindly note that these are only the statistics that we have of those accidents that would have been reported. There are several other incidents that do occur within our communities which don’t even get to us because people will then want to be silent because they know that once you report such issues there will be some litigation that might come thereafter,” he said.

During the same period, Zera recorded 179 non-fatal power-related accidents, whose main causes were unsafe handling of electricity by members of the public, collapsed infrastructure and vandalism, among other things.

Unsafe handling of electricity mainly involved poor workmanship by people claiming to be electricians, while infrastructure collapse occurred mostly during the rain season caused by storms and strong winds.

Theft and vandalism of energy infrastructure, mainly of transformers and power cables, accounted for 12 percent of electricity-related accidents, Ndovori said.

“We have seen a lot of transformers being vandalised and the draining of transformer oils, cutting of cables and unfortunately or maybe someone might say fortunately because justice will then be done but you find out that most of the people that then do the acts of vandalism are not knowledgeable in terms of how electricity is transmitted or distributed resulting in them being electrocuted,” he said.

New Ziana