22/08/2026
Early this morning, an unexpected nationwide power outage took multiple critical systems offline, including traffic lights in the capital city Gaborone, Landlines in the area were also down, while mobile and telecommunications networks were affected. Leading to no internet and cellphone service in major areas of Botswana.
Several parastatals, including water utilities, also warned that their call centres were not operating due to the BPC power outage.
This should be a wake-up call: not all of our critical infrastructure can depend on one power grid. We need proper backup systems for telecommunications, landlines and other essential services, especially those relied on during rescue and emergency situations.
Power outages happen. Our critical services still need to keep running. 🇧🇼
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