2008 Zanzibar power blackout 2008 Zanzibar power blackout The 2008 Zanzibar Power blackout was an extensive power outage on Zanzibar, Tanzania. A similar and longer event happened in Zanzibar in 2009. The island was without power for more than three months. During May and June 2008, Zanzibar suffered a period of almost one month without mains electricity due to a grid failure which left the entire island dependent on alternative methods of electricity generation (mainly diesel generators). Power failed on 21 May 2008 after a wide-area grid failure across the Tanzanian network was followed by a power surge which damaged the submarine interconnector cable
History of Zanzibar sons struggled over the succession. On April 6, 1861, Zanzibar and Oman were divided into two separate principalities. Sayyid Majid bin Said Al-Busaid (1834/5–1870), his sixth son, became the Sultan of Zanzibar, while the third son, Sayyid Thuwaini bin Said al-Said, became the Sultan of Oman. Accounts by visitors to Zanzibar often emphasize the outward beauty of the place. The British explorer Richard Francis Burton described Zanzibar in 1856 as: "Earth, sea and sky, all seemed wrapped in a soft and sensuous repose...The sea of purist sapphire, which had not parted with its blue rays to the atmosphere...lay looking...under a