No water and power in Ladysmith after substation explosion

Various parts of the Alfred Duma Local Municipality (Ladysmith) under uThukela District Municipality are still without water and electricity following an explosion at the Newcastle Road switch house substation on Sunday evening.

Children have not been going to school and some employees remained at home after a fire gutted a substation on the N11 road to Newcastle that evening.

ALSO READ | Who’s accountable for the appointment of Msunduzi’s GM for electricity?

The fire caused about R20 million worth of damage to the station, according to Alfred Duma mayor Zama Sibisi.

Mkhamba resident and government employee, Thulani Ntshingila said it was not feasible to allow children to go to school.

“Employees at the municipality remained at home and a vast area around the district has been hit by the outages. From Sunday evening until now, we are in the dark as to when the situation will be restored to normal. Children will remain home until water and electricity are restored,” said Ntshingila on Wednesday.

READ MORE

Msunduzi’s infrastructure projects proceeding as planned

A Hospital Park resident Bheki Mbhele said residents in the suburb near the provincial hospital were in panic mode since the outages.

ALSO READ | Numerous explosions in mini-substations reported due to illegal connections at Jika Joe

Residents are in panic mode because there is no indication as to when normality will be restored. Most areas are still in the dark and taps are still dry. The explosion of the substation affected the water pump stations, hence the dry taps. People’s perishables will have to be thrown away and some have already done that.

“It’s a loss and having no back-up system in the water pump stations is not helping the situation. Sadly, if there were back-up generators, chances are that those would have been stolen a long time ago,” said Mbhele.

Mayor Sibisi said the explosion resulted in the “total darkness” of all suburbs and the town of Ladysmith.

He said the Fire Department worked tirelessly over the night extinguishing the flames at the substation and only finished at around 11.45 pm.

During that time electrical engineering service officials were able to restore electricity supply in Acaciavale, Aloe Park, Rose Park, Leonardsville, Marula, Steadville, Tsakane, Sumitomo, Lasher and Transvaal Press nuts and bolts factory areas. On Monday morning power was restored to a few businesses in Lyell Street, parts of the central town, provincial hospital, Essen Hospital, Ladysmith Prison, Cannon Road, Lower Hospital Park, Klipbank Road and the motels.

“Currently the technicians are still on the ground working hard to resolve the issue and, as at this point, the cause of the fire has not been identified. Areas that are still affected, like Egerton, Golf Course, Hospital Park, Van Riebeeck Park, Observation Hill, Umkhamba Gardens, Limit Hill, Model Kloof, Danskraal Industrial areas, Bloukrans Road areas, part of the central town and Illing Road are kindly requested to be calm as there are teams on the ground working on restoring the power supply,” said Sibisi.

He said temporary measures were put in place in water treatment plants and that more updates will be provided on Friday.

ALSO READ | Several parts of KZN without power due to storms

He said engineers were trying to energise two transformers that were in working condition to ensure that the whole town has power restored.

“I’m not sure how long the exercise will take,” he said.