2nd LD Writethru: Labor action forces South Africa's power utility to implement severe power cut

CAPE TOWN, June 28 (Xinhua) -- South Africa's power utility Eskom on Tuesday announced that it will enhance the level of load shedding from the current Stage 4 to the more severe Stage 6 in certain periods on Tuesday and Wednesday, citing unlawful and unprotected wage-related labor action that caused disruption to the utility's power plants.

This is the worst power outage since 2019. Eskom has only implemented Stage 6 load shedding once, in December 2019. Stage 6 load shedding will be implemented from 4 p.m. until 10 p.m. on Tuesday and 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Wednesday, while Stage 4 or Stage 2 will be implemented during other hours, it said in a statement.