Price of bread rises 60% overnight in Zimbabwe

The price of bread shot up 60 percent overnight in Zimbabwe, in the latest blow for a population already struggling with spiralling living costs.

Zimbabweans can barely keep pace with the price rises that have rekindled fears of hyperinflation which reached 500 billion percent a decade ago and forced the country to trash its own currency.

Already many families live on one meal a day, with the southern African country in the grip of a major downturn that has provoked biting shortages of basics such as fuel and medicine.

Bakers said they were forced to hike their prices due to rising production costs.

Electricity prices have "gone up significantly, the price of fuel has also been going up weekly, the prices of raw materials have also gone up including the cost of importing wheat," said Dennis Wala, the president of the National Bakers' Association.

Electricity is only available for around six hours a day, forcing many bakers to use generators to run their ovens.

"The bread manufacturer .