Electricity has returned to several neighborhoods of the city of Kinshasa after the flooding of the National Electricity Company's (SNEL) Funa station facilities in the Limete commune.

"The National Electricity Company resumed the supply of electricity to its subscribers in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, who were left without power after its facilities were flooded by the waters of torrential rains," states a communique from the company.

The same source specifies that it was around 1:15 (00:00 GMT) that engineers and technicians from the public operator SNEL were able to restore the electric power supply to its subscribers, after two days of work.

And to explain: "First, the electrical installations at the Funa station were flooded by the waters of the Kalamu river, which had burst its banks. While water evacuation efforts were very advanced on Sunday, the rain had resumed fiercely, undoing all the efforts made because the waters had reoccupied the cleaned surface.

As if misfortune never comes alone, the installations that serve Lingwala, part of Gombe, and Barumbu had also experienced some issues. Since the early hours of Tuesday, electricity is once again being supplied to subscribers."

While the situation has been restored in some of the neighborhoods affected by this issue, several other neighborhoods, like Bel'Air in the Lingwala commune, must still wait patiently.

According to sources close to the company, in addition to the water evacuation works, the technicians also carried out maintenance and cleaning of the equipment. They also replaced transformers and other equipment that had become defective. This substation has a capacity of 146 megawatts and supplies power to 10 of the 24 communes that make up the city of Kinshasa.

Boni Tsala