The township of Alexandra was turned into a dark city on Tuesday night, 16 July, after a substation that supplies electricity in the area caught fire, leaving thousands of residents without lights for the entire night.
Isaac Mangena, the spokesperson for City Power, said the power outage was a result of fire that flared up at the 50-year-old substation in Vasco Da Gama Street around 2 pm. “The fire started around lunch time razing the substation to the ground.
“The fire plunged over half of Alexandra Township from 2nd Avenue to 18th Avenue into darkness. The cables that were still smouldering made it difficult for technicians to start the working of restoring power.
“We are anticipating that the process of repairing the substation will take at least 48 hours. It is suspected that vandalism could be the cause of fire after the gate leading into the substation were found to have been broken into.”
Mangena apologised to the affected community and urged residents to work with the utility to protect infrastructure from vandalism by reporting criminal activities in the area.
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