This is what caused the power blackout that threw Kenya, Uganda into darkness.

Parts of Kenya and Uganda were plunged into darkness on Tuesday evening due what Kenya Power and Lighting Company described as a “power system disturbance”.

Many counties or some sections of the counties experienced the blackout. They include, many parts of Bomet, Embu, Kiambu, Kisii, Kisumu, Laikipia, Nairobi, Narok, Nyandarua, Nyeri, Mombasa, Meru, Taita Taveta, Tharaka-Nithi and Uasin Gishu counties.

In a statement, Kenya Power said a power system disturbance caused the outage. General Manager in charge of network management Eng. Daniel Tare said the company engineers are battling to identify the fault and restore power supply as quickly as possible, added Kenya Power

“Kenya Power engineers are battling to identify the fault and restore power supply as quickly as possible,” the electricity distributor said.

This came following a barrage of complaints from outraged power consumers, many of whom took to social media.

Initially Kenya Power, through its official customer care handle on Twitter, gave a generic response: 

“We’re sorry about that. It is a known issue and we hope to have it fixed as soon as possible.”

Later, the company changed tact, saying simply that it was aware of the problem and was working to fix it.

It added: “Your main line is off due to a fault, issue currently being addressed by our team.”

Although Kenya Power only identified Nairobi as being affected by the outage, there were indications that the blackout affected a wider swathe of the country as tweets across Kenya reported blackouts.

At the same time, the electricity distributor in Uganda, Umeme Limited, reported a similar outage 

“affecting many areas” and said that its teams were working to immediately restore supplies.

It is not yet clear if the two incidences are connected.

In most parts of the Kenyan urban centres, sounds of diesel generators could be heard from various buildings as landlords sought to keep operation going.