Zimbabwe Power Cut Halts Mnangagwa SONA, Highlights Risks

A power outage interrupted President Emmerson Mnangagwa's State of the Nation Address after officials said a circuit breaker tripped; authorities suspended a power utility manager amid conflicting explanations and concerns about possible sabotage. The incident prompted an investigation and raised questions about the reliability of Zimbabwe's power infrastructure. Reporting on the episode also placed it in a wider context of infrastructure fragility, noting that outages in healthcare and cloud services can halt critical systems. Practical measures — including use of uninterruptible power supplies, staged reboot procedures, and improved lighting and switching design in buildings — are being recommended to reduce damage, maintain essential services and improve safety during future outages.