Several Germiston suburbs have been left without water this morning.
This comes weeks after a week-long outage which left many Germiston residents angry and frustrated as they waited in line to fill water containers.
Today’s water outage is a result of a power outage at Rand Water’s Zuikerbosch and Vereeniging treatment plants and Lethabo Pumping Stations.
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“Klopper Park, Elandsfontein, Sunnyridge, Homestead, Gerdview, Wannenburg, Solheim, Fishers’ Hill, Dawnview, Symhurst, Primrose Hill and Primrose are some of the areas being affected by the water outage,” said Ward 36 councillor Wendy Morgan.
“Prim Villa in Cydonia Road, Protea Old Age Home in Tulip Road, Solheim Old Aged Home in Neptune Street, Avril Elizabeth Home in Fishers’ Hill and Life Roseacres Hospital have also been left without a water supply.”
The GCN contacted Rand Water’s executive manager, Eddie Singo, to get more clarity on the situation and find out when water will be restored to the affected areas.
“The outage was caused by a veld fire on Wednesday afternoon, which caused the transformers at Eskom’s Snowden sub-station to trip,” said Singo.
“This trip meant the 88kV supplied to Rand Water’s Zuikerbosch and Vereeniging treatment plants and Lethabo Pumping Stations was interrupted and as a result 4 800 mega litres of water supplied from Rand Water came to a stop.
“This meant Rand Water couldn’t supply any water at all from the two treatment plants.
“During this down time, consumers were still using water as normal, which lead to the reservoirs being depleted and hence some areas are experiencing water outages.”
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Singo confirmed that the power supply from Eskom to the plants has been restored and that the plants can begin operations once again.
“The difference between water and electricity is that electricity can return with just a touch of a button water, however, cannot,” said Singo.
“We have to first build up our water reserves.
“From the time the power comes back on to when we can supply water again is about four to five hours.
“We are in the process of purifying water and are beginning to fill the reservoirs.
“While this is happening we are appealing to the community to use water very sparingly.
“If by this afternoon the levels are not where they should be we may have to implement water restrictions.”
Singo could not give an indication of when the water would be restored.
“We will keep the public updated on our progress through Facebook, Twitter and the media,” said Singo
The metro also could not give an indication of when the water would return and apologised for the inconvenience.
Morgan confirmed a roving water tanker was available at Howe Circle, in Sunnyridge and more tankers would be dispatched.
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Contact the newsroom by emailing: Melissa Hart (Editor) germistoncitynews@caxton.co.za or Leigh Hodgson (News Editor) leighh@caxton.co.za.
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