Blackout Seen Costing Zambian Economy More Than $50 Million

A power failure that plunged almost all of Zambia into darkness for hours on Monday could cost the economy of Africa’s second-biggest copper producer more than $50 million as mines take time to recover, an economist said.

“The mining sector is different from all other productive sectors -- once you get a hit like that there are some spillover effects,” Isaac Ngoma, president at the Economics Association of Zambia, said Wednesday by mobile phone from Lusaka, the capital.