Germiston Power Outage: City dumped in darkness due to illegal mining
Illegal mining activity near the substation, next to Makause informal settlement, results in fire which causes power surge and subsequent power outage.
Residents and businesses are losing thousands of rands as the city is still without electricity since the early morning hours ofAugust 16. By 09:00 on August 21, there was still no power.
Ward 36 Clr Wendy Morgan explained the cause of the power outage was the result of underground illegal mining activity near the substation, next to Makause informal settlement.
“The illegal miners made a fire next to the cable, which damaged the cables. This created a power surge and damaged link boxes along a 15km line,” said Morgan.
Also read: Germiston residents without power – again
Eskom was initially unable to find the fault. Morgan said on the first day of the power outage the link boxes could not be replaced until the fault had been identified. Eskom located the fault on August 17, at which time they informed residents that power would be restored by August 21.
Affected areas included Tedstoneville, Germiston South Industries, Dukathole, Germiston Ext 9, Johnson and Mathey, Primrose, Marlands, Wychwood, Malvern East, Dawnview, Sunnyridge, Sunnyrock, Meadowdale Wilbart and surroundings.
Also read: Eskom unable to indentify fault
Many residents were also without water as the municipality could not pump water to the Windsor pump station, which relied on a generator to pump water to higher-lying areas.
At 10:00 on August 21, it was reported that Eskom had completed repairs and repaired its equipment.
“Eskom have switched on their 132kv cable. City of Ekurhuleni has started with their own testing and will commence switching on once all tests are done,” said Morgan.
Estimated restoration time is 11:30.
Also read: Eskom attends to Germiston North power outage
Residents and businesses, in the meantime, continue to suffer as homeowners are at a point of considering relocation and more businesses are closing down shop.
Those working from home pay on average R500 per day to keep generators running whilst others have to discard rotten foods.
Germiston City News, which is also affected by the power outage as its office is based in Primrose, sent an urgent request for comment to Eskom questioning the safeguarding of infrastructure on August 21 at 9:00.
GCN also requested comment from the CoE, the mayor and the speaker questioning why the DA motion regarding illegal mining was denied, what action will be taken to ensure that illegal mining activity does not have a further detrimental impact on Germiston residents and businesses and what these three offices are doing to prevent further decay of Germiston’s economy due to power outages.
GCN awaits comment.
