While some areas had power restored after the large-scale outage on March 23, others have to wait another two days to see some light.
According to a detailed report released by the Ekurhuleni metro’s Energy Department on March 26, the outage was attributed to an oil-filled 132kV cable that tripped due to low pressure.
The areas affected included Rynfield, Morehill, Northmead, Brentwood Park, Goedeberg, Farrarmere and Brentwood Park.
On March 24, the leak was located and the oil was again pumped. However, two more faults on the same line were located.
Teams had to excavate the line to assess the additional faults.
A joint statement released by the ward councillors of the affected areas said the leak was located successfully.
“Further tests will be done ascertain that there are no further leaks,” said Ward 27 Clr Lornette Joseph.
“Acacia, parts of President Brand, Deane Crescent, parts of O’Reilly Merry, Dickinson, Benoni, High, Glen Gory roads and Glen Norton’s power was restored late on Sunday (March 26).”
However, the residents of the outstanding areas were told to only expect to be switched back on, on Tuesday (March 28).
“Through six-hour rotational load-sharing, the remainder of the areas will be divided into two sections until the affected cable has been repaired,” said Joseph.
Despite the area-wide outage that further strained the water supply system, which ran dry on March 15, updates from the metro seemingly became less frequent.
Promises of a video from the MMC for Water, Sanitation and Energy, Senzi Sibeko, to deliver comments to residents about why the water and electricity supply chain was so severely compromised and what steps the department had taken to resolve the issue, was not received.
In a brief statement received from mayoral spokesperson Warren Gwilt, Executive Mayor Tania Campbell apologised to the community for the prolonged outage.
“We inherited a city riddled with historic backlogs in terms of repairs and maintenance, which has been exacerbated by the continued load-shedding,” she said.
“The multi-party coalition is doing its utmost to attend to issues timeously.”
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