209 PEOPLE SUCCUMB TO ELECTROCUTION – ZESA

By Vimbai Kamoyo

Over 200 people have died from electrical shocks, the Power and Energy Regulator has said.

Speaking at a workshop organised to come up with legislation that would curtail electrical accidents and fatalities, Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (ZERA) officials said 209 have died from power-related issues between 2015 and 2022.

Speaking at the workshop, Engineer Victor Sibanda said 388 people were involved in the accidents within that period, and 209 succumbed, representing a fatality percentage of 54 percent.

“Between 2015 and 2022 we witnessed a death toll of 209 from 388 accidents. This may not be representative of the actual numbers on the ground as some accidents go unreported. We are here to come up with legislation that will see the reduction of such cases,” he said.

According to the statistics shared by the regulator, there were 27 fatalities in 2015, and 26 in 2016, going down to 20 in 2017, 30 in 2018, 26 again in 2019, 26 again in 2020, and 21 in 2021 before going an astronomical 33 in 2022.

Eng Sibanda said there were 179 non-fatal ones but with some being very critical recording permanent disabilities.

“There have been non-fatal incidences; from 2015 to 2022 and these have been the figures over the years. These have been the respective non-fatal figures between the years – 31, 19, 11, 18, 7 34, 30, and 29.

Engineer Sibanda gave a variety of reasons as to the reasons for the accidents.

“There are reasons for these accidents and they include theft and vandalism on electricity infrastructure which contribute 12%, infrastructure collapse which contributes 31%, unsafe operations by ZETDC employees 24% and unsafe /practices operations by the public,” he said.