Marrakech – Morocco dispatched a technical team, along with equipment and supplies, to Mauritania’s capital to help restore electricity across broad areas of Nouakchott, after the city spent between 24 and roughly 72 hours without power.
According to Mauritanian media, the outage followed two closely timed fires at transformer stations – one in Toujounine in Nouakchott North, the other in Tevragh Zeina in Nouakchott West.
Senegal also stepped in. Its government provided teams and equipment to its Mauritanian counterpart, while additional gear came from a company affiliated with the Senegal River Basin Development Organization (OMVS).
The eastern station in Toujounine caught fire Friday, cutting power across wide sections of the capital. The western station in Tevragh Zeina burned the following day.
Together, the two stations feed a zone stretching from Tanit port, 50 kilometers along the Nouadhibou-Nouakchott road, through the “Oumtounsi” international airport and the districts of Aghnoudert, Tevragh Zeina, Ksar, Sebkha, Dar Naim, Toujounine, and parts of Arafat, as well as the towns of Wad Naga, Idini, and Aoulikat.
By early Monday, technical teams had gradually restarted the eastern substation, and the utility SOMELEC confirmed that power returned at once to several affected neighborhoods in Nouakchott North.
Mauritanian crews, backed by the Moroccan and Senegalese teams, kept working at the western substation to repair the fault and install a new distribution cell and breakers.
The blackout stripped many areas of services tied to electricity for between 10 and more than 48 hours, including drinking water and communications.
Residents on the outskirts searched for water beyond the capital, while some boarded public buses on aimless trips to keep their phones charged and stay connected. Telecom services collapsed because operators run their antennas on grid power, with no generators or solar backups.
Losses mounted for households and for small shops, where refrigerated goods spoiled. Traders discarded spoiled meat and poultry, with some estimating damages in the tens of thousands of ouguiya and voicing doubt that the government would ask about their losses or compensate them.
Questions over the cause soon followed. Several bloggers tied the fires to substandard equipment procured outside legal tender procedures.
The civic body “Achafafiya Achamila” (Comprehensive Transparency) traced the blazes to non-compliant or counterfeit cables bought through a tender under the emergency program for Nouakchott’s development, part of a modernization drive costing $300 million. Corruption “destroys the state, and the corrupt are protected,” warned the group, led by former senator Mohamed Ould Ghadde.
The crisis pulled the government back to work. Prime Minister Mokhtar Ould Diay cut short his annual leave, and Energy Minister Mohamed Ould Khaled turned back mid-route to Washington, where he had been due to attend a conference.
SOMELEC’s director general, Khroumbali Lehbib, apologized to residents and confirmed that spare parts were arriving from abroad to complete repairs.
Touring the eastern station, President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani set two priorities: restoring power to homes and opening a full investigation into what happened, how, and where the failures originated.
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