The tourist town of Livingstone was plunged into a blackout for six-and-a-half hours after a baboon wandered into the local power station.
A power company spokesman told the BBC the baboon suffered a massive electric shock as it pulled on a high voltage transformer, but remarkably survived thanks to a "thick skin."
“We've had situations where some wires have been cut in some sub-station but we've never had a situation where a baboon gets into the sub-station and wreaks such damage," he said.
"It has never happened. We see baboons around but not literally getting into the sub-station and then tampering with the installation."
The town is located close to the popular visitors’ destination Victoria Falls, and lies close to a national park.
Zambian journalist Kennedy Gondwe told the BBC that it's not uncommon for wild animals to be found wandering around the area.
Henry Kapta from Zesco Ltd, the company that owns the power station, said the "baboon was taken to wildlife officers for treatment".
Mr Kapta said that the baboon was lucky to survive the electric shock which would have killed a human, but had sustained serious injuries.
In a similar incident in 2016, a monkey caused a 15-minute nationwide blackout in Kenya.
The power has now been fixed for those affected by the outage.
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