Ongoing African drought has plunged Zambia into daily blackouts as hydroelectric dam unable to run

Zambia is seeing its worst electricity blackouts in memory due to a severe drought. It has left the critical Kariba dam without enough water to run its hydroelectric turbines.

Kariba is the largest man-made lake in the world by volume and lies 200 kilometres south of Zambia's capital Lusaka, on the border with Zimbabwe.

The massive dam wall was built in the 1950s when more than 80 workers died during construction. It was meant to revolutionise the countries' energy supplies by trapping the water of the Zambezi River, turning a valley into a huge lake and providing an endless supply of renewable hydroelectric power.

That's not the case anymore as months of drought brought by the naturally occurring El Niño weather pattern, and exacerbated by global warming, have put Zambia's hydroelectric station on the brink of completely shutting down for the first time.

In March this year, Zambia declared a state of emergency over its prolonged drought. At the time President Hakainde Hichilema said the lack of water had destroyed about one million hectares of the 2.2 million hectares planted with the staple maize crop.

“This drought has devastating consequences on many sectors such as agriculture, water availability and energy supply, risking our national food security and the livelihoods of millions of our people," Hichilema explained. 

Edla Musonda is so exasperated that she’s taken to lugging her entire desktop computer - hard drive, monitor, everything - to a local cafe so she can work.

Musonda and others cram into the Mercato Cafe in the Zambian capital of Lusaka, not for the sandwiches or the ambiance but because it has a diesel generator. Tables are cluttered with power strips and cables as people plug in cell phones, laptops and in