A mischievous monkey managed to survive the shocking experience of falling onto a crucial piece of equipment, which caused a nationwide electrical power blackout in Kenya.

"A loss of generation at Gitaru hydro station resulted into a major power outage that affected other sources of electricity," Kenya Electricity Generating Company said in a statement.  "When it failed, the whole system tripped and shut down other power plants."

The primate fell on a transformer at the Gitaru hydroelectric power station on Tuesday.  The transformer then tripped, resulting in the loss of 180 megawatts of energy and triggering a blackout across Kenya.  KenGen restored the juice within four hours, and the Kenya Wildlife Service took in the injured monkey to nurse it back to health.

"KenGen power installations are secured by electric fencing which keeps away marauding wild animals," read a statement from KenGen.  "We regret this isolated incident and the company is looking at ways of further enhancing security at all our power plants."

But the shocking simian can't be blamed for all of it.  Kenya's power grid is aging and the country is overly reliant on hydro-generated supplies.

The Business Daily Africa website reported that businesses bore the brunt of Tuesday's blackout, but many others had already installed generators because of the frequent blackouts in the country.