A baboon has reportedly caused massive electricity outage in the south western town of Livingstone after it accidently tampered with high voltage machines.

According to the country’s power producer, Zambia Electricity Supply Company (ZESCO), the resulting blackout affected about 50,000 consumers in the city and the Western Province.

Zesco’s spokesperson, Henry Kapata said the animal which survived being electrocuted, has been handed over to the Zambia Wildlife Authority (ZAWA) where it is currently in the Intensive Care Unit.

“The baboon tampered with the A station and the B3 and B5 machines in our power station cutting electricity to Western Province and of course Livingstone town.

“So we have above 28,000 customers in Livingstone and 22,000 customers in Western Province.  The baboon cut our power station around 06:50 hours,” Kapata told a local radio station, Byta FM.

“The lines the baboon was tampering with are extremely high voltage. You can see that it was electrocuted in so many ways but it has survived. It is an animal, we cannot prosecute it, otherwise if it was human, we would have taken it to court,” he added.