What happened

An extended regional drought across the Zambezi basin, beginning with record-low rainfall around 2022 and substantially worsened by the 2023-2024 El Niño event, progressively depleted Lake Kariba, the reservoir behind the Kariba Dam that straddles the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe and has for decades supplied the bulk of both countries' electricity. By late August 2024, Lake Kariba's usable storage had fallen to roughly 8%, with live water storage of about 1.26 metres — described by officials as the lowest levels in the dam's history — and the reservoir had not returned to full capacity since 2011. Zambian power utility ZESCO announced it would force a shutdown of the Kariba North Bank Power Station on 14 September 2024 due to critically low water levels; by September, only one of the station's six turbines remained operable. The resulting generation shortfall drove severe rolling blackouts across both countries, with Zambia experiencing load-shedding of up to 20 hours per day and Zimbabwe up to 12 hours per day at the crisis's worst, with some cities reported to have gone without power for days at a stretch. ZESCO said it was exploring emergency power imports and investing in new coal and solar generation to mitigate the shortfall. Experts warned conditions could worsen before the approach of the rainy season roughly three months later, and the crisis was widely described as simultaneously a water, energy and food emergency for the region, underscoring calls for both countries to diversify beyond hydropower. This is documented as a climate/hydrological-driven generation crisis, not an attack.

When cited sources give different casualty, damage or spill figures for this event, they’re reported side by side above rather than merged into one number. See how confidence levels work.