South Africa

WATCH: Man claims son almost drowned in massive pothole

A father has raised concerns about his son almost drowning in a massive pothole in Rustenburg, in the North West province.

In the video which was posted on Twitter, a young boy can be seen immersing a stick into the pothole to determine the depth of the massive crater.

The father then tells his son to remove the stick to show how deep the pothole was.

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Deep pothole

From observations, the pothole seemed to be the height of a young child.

In the video, the father warned the Rustenburg municipality to cordon off the pothole.

“I want to give you a very stringent warning, if you do not barricade this in the next four hours… My son nearly drowned,” he said.

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Repaired

The massive pothole has since been repaired.

The municipality said hole formed after leak was reported at Rapoo Street in TIhabane.

“A water unit foreman was dispatched to assess the leak. Upon arrival on site it was identified that the top soil collapsed and exposed the pipe leak due to the pressure of the leak. The foreman proceeded to allocate the complaint to the team and the team arrived on site. The pipe leak was repaired and the excavation was barricaded,” it said.

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ALSO READ: WATCH: Mbalula aka Mr Fix rolls out pothole plan to save your tyres

Potholes repairs

In August, Minister of Transport Fikile Mbalula rolled out a what the department of transport called a 16-month labour intensive programme, spearheaded by the South African National Roads Agency (Sanral), to address potholes in the country. 

The campaign allows motorists, through a new mobile app, to report craters on roads nationwide.

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Mbalula encouraged the public to report craters on municipal and provincial roads on the newly launched app in order to enable the government to repair them speedily.

Smartphone users can download the Sanral Pothole App from the Google Play store and iOS App Store.

ALSO READ: Over 25 million potholes sprawled across SA roads

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By Faizel Patel
Read more on these topics: potholes