Power outage plunges SA's 'maize capital' into darkness

South Africa's "maize capital" was plunged into darkness when the town of Bothaville in the Free State was hit by a power outage in the early hours of Monday. 

The town, which is known as the country's maize capital, is famous for its annual agricultural show and is a major producer of various crops.

“Tests are being conducted on the transformer to determine the cause of the outage. An estimated restoration time is still unknown," Eskom said in a statement.

The power utility apologised for the inconvenience after the lights went out at 1:30am.

Consumers in the town were urged to treat electrical lines, sockets and appliances as live and dangerous at all times.