WATCH: Briardene residents call for sewer education
A sewage leak that has been ongoing for three months, has been caused by foreign objects being thrown down the toilet.
CLARA Place residents are at their wits end as an ongoing sewage leak has left raw sewage flowing past their homes for three months.
A stream of sewage runs past Zandile Nyswa’s doorstep forcing her to keep her door shut to shield her family from the strong odour.
“The smell is affecting me a lot, it hurts my chest. The flies come and I can’t open the door because the smell is so bad. It’s not safe for my children. It’s even worse because we are dealing with the virus,” she said.
The blockage is caused by foreign objects such as newspaper, nappies, pads, condoms and even clothes being thrown down the toilet said neighbour, Phumzile Ndwandwe, who lives next door to the sewage system.
“Other residents don’t care, because they don’t live right next to the sewage leak like we do,” she added.
Siyabusa Goge, who owns a tuck shop on Krishna Road, where there is another ongoing sewage leak said it is affecting his business which was already crippled by the lockdown.
“The customers can’t wait for more than five minutes because of the terrible smell. We reported this and the municipality came out, but they failed to fix it. We don’t know what to do now because we have reported the matter three times,” said Goge who supports his family and two small children solely through his tuck shop.
Acting ward councillor,Shontel De Boer said she has reported the matter to the municipality more than 10 times.
“The municipality needs to do an education awareness programme on what can and what cannot be put into the sewer system. Until they do that, the behaviour will continue because people don’t know any better. The sewage leak doesn’t affect everyone directly and unless it affects you immediately, you are going to continue with the bad behaviour,” said de Boer.
Spokesperson for the eThekwini Municipality, Msawakhe Mayisela previously commented on the matter, saying alien objects continue to enter the sanitation system, causing blockages.
“There are instances where immediately after our teams have unblocked the system we find ourselves going back to square one,” he said.
Mayisela also highlighted illegal connections as a contributing factor.
“We sincerely apologise to our residents who happen to bear the brunt of these challenges,” he said.
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