Senegal was hit by a widespread electricity cut Thursday after a problem at a power station in the capital Dakar, a rare outage in the West African nation.

“We had a disruption due to an incident around 1:00 pm (1300 GMT) in the Hann neighbourhood of Dakar that caused a countrywide outage because of the interconnected network,” Marietou Seye, a spokeswoman for the national power company Senelec, told AFP.

“This is the first time in years that we have had an outage this long,” Seye said.

Power plants nationwide had disconnected from the grid to protect themselves after the “unfortunate incident” caused “a very violent short circuit and a big explosion” in Hann, Senelec’s distribution director Oumar Diallo told AFP.

Electricity had been restored in several areas of Dakar and cities around the country in the evening, Seye said.

Senegal’s electricity sector had long endured crises for years, with frequent so-called “brown outs” of rolling cuts peaking in 2010 and 2011.

But power cuts became less frequent after President Macky Sall, who ruled until earlier this year, invested heavily in the country’s energy infrastructure and diversified its energy mix.