3 City Power substations affected following explosion in Joburg CBD

Some residents were plunged into darkness after City Power services within the Johannesburg CBD were affected by the explosion that happened on Wednesday, July 19.

City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said the three substations Bree, Braamfontein and Johnware substations are currently off until the Joint Command Team comprising the CoJ Emergency Services, Disaster Management and other CoJ and Provincial units have given the go-ahead.

“From the preliminary assessments, it does not look like the three substations were affected immediately after the explosion around 17h30 as power in some areas was still on,” he said.

“However, the substations were load-shed at 18h00 until 20h00, and our teams decided that we should not switch them on for fear that it might ignite with reports of a suspected gas leak in the vicinity,” said Mangena.

Mangena said that the Bree substation is a few meters away from the area with the huge impact, and the suspicion is that its structural integrity may have been affected.

“Our team of engineers and technicians are on-site doing assessments and tests on the network to get the extent of the impact on the electricity infrastructure,” he said.

The power utility mentioned that one of its employees was injured during the explosion on her way to work, and she is one of those currently hospitalized.

Mangena reiterated that the team will not be responding to outage calls in the CBD until the area has been declared safe to access and work.

Residents will be updated on the developments in terms of electricity supply, and the City of Joburg leadership will give regular updates on all the services impacted, including electricity.