The planned water shutdown which will affect a large part of Johannesburg will take place next week. Picture: iStock
The 44-hour water outage in Johannesburg, which was initially scheduled to take place from 20 June, will now take place next week.
This is according to the latest update provided by Johannesburg Water. The municipal entity said the postponement of the shutdown was to provide a brief respite for residents in areas which have been subjected to water supply challenges.
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The planned shutdown – which will affect a large number of areas – will now occur from 7pm on Tuesday, 11 July 2023, to 3pm on Thursday, 13 July.
Rand Water said the shutdown is necessary to facilitate the tie-in between pipelines A19 and B14 with a new pipeline.
It will also include the installation of isolation valves, and system upgrades at Rand Water’s Eikenhof pump station.
The disruption will affect the Johannesburg Water infrastructure supplied by the Eikenhof pump station, resulting in a complete water supply cut-off.
The following reservoirs will be affected:
Johannesburg Water said that the full recovery of the system after the shutdown may take up to five days or longer after supply has been restored.
However, strategic locations, such as hospitals, clinics, schools, municipal offices, police stations and shopping centres, will receive alternative water supply.
The following 138 areas are expected to be impacted by the water outage:
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The City of Tshwane has been struggling with seemingly never-ending water supply challenges this year.
According to Jacaranda FM, residents of the Centurion suburb of Wierdapark have resorted to opening fire hydrants to access water as they have been without water for the past two days.
“Residents are outraged by the current situation of no water in Wierdapark. The Bakenkop Reservoir feeding Wierdapark and neighbouring suburbs is completely empty. It indirectly implies that residents are to be blamed for over usage of water resources in Tshwane. However, this is not the complete truth,” Wierdapark Residents Association interim chairperson Liza Vorster said.
“Residents of Olievenhoutbosch stormed to Monavoni and Mnandi yesterday and opened fire hydrants to get water for usage in the community. This is a desperate situation in the City of Tshwane currently.”
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