AN ongoing sewage leak has left residents and essential service providers on Sea Cow Lake Road in distress as they continue to report a leak that started on 2 April.
After reporting the leak several times, raw sewage continues to flood the yard of the home and business premises.
Mahomed Goolamhoosen, who has lived on the property for 63 years, said this is the first time he has seen such a leak and with the Covid-19 outbreak health concerns are heightened.
“We worry about our health with the virus and everything that’s going on, anything can happen. I’m living here with my wife, children and my grandchildren who are just three and seven years old,” he said.
What’s more, the lockdown extension means the family is stuck at home with the strong odour of sewage on their doorstep.
“The smell is terrible, you cannot leave the doors open. We have been phoning continuously and just get reference number upon reference number,” said Goolamhoosen.
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Next door, Soobramany Govender who provides an essential service, doing maintenance on food delivery trucks, is at his wits end as his business premises is flooded in sewage.
“My staff could not attend to vehicles, because my equipment is all inside my shed which is flooded. Our office is also flooded. I cannot attend to phone calls and a couple of the companies I work with think I am not working. I’ve lost business and it’s a very tough time to be loosing business,” he said.
In addition to this, Govender’s equipment has been damaged.
“My welding machine and hoist has been damaged. We don’t know if we can salvage it,” he said.
After the leak is fixed, a clean up operation is necessary to remove the ever rising levels of sewage, added Govender.
The eThekwini Municipality did not send their comment at the time this article was published.
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