South Africa continues to experience power outages

JOHANNESBURG, Feb. 21 (Xinhua) -- South Africa has continued to experience long hours without electricity after eight generation units broke down, the country's power utility Eskom said Tuesday.

South Africa has been experiencing stage-6 load shedding since Monday, having to go without electricity for more than eight hours a day. Eskom said the implementation of the stage-6 load shedding is a result of the breakdowns of eight generation units Sunday afternoon.

"Given the high number of breakdowns, there is a possibility of further changes on the stages of load shedding at short notice. A further update will be published as soon as any significant changes occur," Eskom said in a statement Tuesday.

Breakdowns currently amount to 21,243 MW of generating capacity while 3,566 MW of generating capacity is out of service for planned maintenance, according to the statement.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Feb. 9 declared a state of disaster with immediate effect to deal with the country's severe electricity crisis.