Senegal was hit by a nationwide electricity outage on Thursday following an accident at a power station in the capital, Senegal's power utility Senelec said in a statement.

The accident at the 90,000-volt Hann station triggered a wider outage on an interconnection grid, disrupting electricity distribution across the country, Senelec said.

It did not give any further details about the accident.

Since a severe power crisis a decade ago that crippled businesses and led to violent riots, Senegal has carried out reforms and invested heavily in generation and transmission to improve power supply.

The utility said in a statement to Reuters that power was gradually being restored to some regions, and parts of the capital, Dakar.

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