M1 fire: Relief as Braamfontein and surrounding areas back online after nearly two-weeks

After thirteen days in the dark, residents in parts of Joburg finally saw the light again after electricity was restored.

City Power announced that electricity supply has been restored in Braamfontein and other parts of Johannesburg on Tuesday morning.

“City Power is pleased to announce that repairs on the damaged electricity infrastructure on the M1 tunnel are finally complete and power supply has been fully restored this morning,” the utility said in a statement.

Braamfontein power outage resolved

Group Executive Charles Tlouane confirmed that all customers who were engulfed by the darkness finally had their homes, businesses and schools lit up.

“Today as we speak, it’s all 100% our cables in,” said Tlouane.

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On Monday, the entity had said over 90% of customers who were affected by the fire had their electricity restored.

The utility’s spokesperson Isaac Mangena said a newly installed 88kV cable successfully passed its testing phase and was subsequently energised and brought online.

“Repairs have been ongoing, underground in the tunnels and on the surface, with new cables installed including 88kV cables which was livened up after passing a test on Monday,” said Mangena.

A certain load of some of the customers were connected with the use of temporary measures like generators and interconnectors. This load has been moved back to the 88kV cable.

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Guard against vandalism

City Power gradually restored electricity supply to affected areas over thirteen days.

Affected customers in Parktown, Newtown, Braamfontein, the Johannesburg CBD, and surrounding areas went without power after cable theft led to a fire in tunnels under the M1 highway on 1 May.

The fire was triggered by acts of vandalism and theft, where 300 metres of cable were stolen.

Tlouane appealed to all South Africans to guard against the theft and vandalism of copper and aluminium cables.

“Let’s guard against this vandalism and let’s report it irrespective of whether it’s City Power or any other entities that belong to the state and also in [the] private [sector],” he added.

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Students’ frustration on prolonged power outage

On Friday, students in the affected areas shared their complaints on social media.

The students complained that the prolonged power outage has disrupted their studies and livelihood.

One of Wits students severely affected by the power outage said the M1 fire power outage not only prevented them from being able to cook, iron and carry out other necessary daily activities but also resulted in unprecedented expenses as they have to constantly buy takeaways and also throw away spoilt groceries.

“We haven’t had electricity for a week going on to two; that means that I cannot cook because you cannot cook with the sun,” said prettygent_official on TikTok.

The student also had concerns about safety since the outage. He said incidents of theft and robbery had increased as a result of the darkness.

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@prettygent_official Tough times are lasting 😭 #university #universitylife #campuslife #varsitystudent #relateablecontent #explorepage #fyp #prettygent #firstyearstudent #SAMA28 ♬ original sound – prettygent_official

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