SABC radio stations back on air after power failure

The SABC’s 19 radio stations on Thursday afternoon were all back on air after an interruption caused by a power failure at its head office in Auckland Park, Johannesburg.

The public broadcaster blamed the interruption to its broadcasts on power supply issues from City Power.

The SABC’s acting spokesperson, Mmoni Seapolelo, confirmed to The Citizen the radio stations were continuing with their live broadcasts.

But she said the power cuts were unpredictable at this stage because of on and off power supply issues affecting parts of Johannesburg.

ALSO READ: Several areas in Johannesburg without electricity

Earlier on Thursday, radio stations RSG and SAFM were disrupted by the blackout during their morning broadcasts.

Later in the morning, the public broadcaster issued a statement saying it was once again experiencing recurring broadcast interruptions on all its radio platforms.

“The corporation is closely monitoring the situation and working around the clock to resolve the problem,” Seapolelo said in a statement.

City Power technicians working on repairs

Meanwhile, City Power said residents could expect power to be restored by midday after a power outage affected large areas of Johannesburg.

In a statement, City Power said its technicians, who worked overnight, were still on site at Nasrec attending to repairs to an outage affecting the Mayfair substation.

“Preliminary investigation suggests we are still dealing with the after effects of the damage caused by a tree that fell on our power lines earlier this week,” City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said.

“Extensive damage was caused to the pylon structures down the line from where the tree fall happened, resulting in intermittent outages due to high voltage insulators blowing up.”

Affected areas include:

• Auckland Park
• Braamfontein
• Brixton
• Homestead Park
• Mayfair
• Melville
• Parktown
• Richmond

Additional reporting by Molefe Seeletsa.

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