Faulty electricity meter box explodes
A family in the RDP settlement in Leeuwfontein outside Marble Hall, narrowly escaped death when a faulty electricity meter box exploded in their house
LIMPOPO –Â According to Kenneth Mgaga (37), the blast occurred minutes after him and his wife, Kgaogelo, left the house to go to a nearby shop.
Mgaga said a few metres away from the house, they heard a booming sound and when they looked back, they realised it had come from their house.
“We ran back to the house and were very worried because my six year-old son had just arrived from school and was in the house. When we got to the house we saw that he managed to run out when he heard the blast. We started, together with neighbours, putting out the fire. There was water in tanks outside the house that I had kept to construct bricks which we used to extinguish the fire. We don’t have water in this area. The fire was very strong. We managed to put it out in more than 40 minutes.”
He said the damage was serious, ravaging their furniture and damaging the windows.
He said they did not feel safe in the house anymore as they were not the first in the area to experience a fire caused by a faulty electricity meter box.
“There are three other houses in the area which suffered the same loss. Eskom must really come and check these boxes because they are a ticking time bomb. We are going to lose a life one day. I don’t even know how am going to replace my furniture. I reported the matter and they came and switched the electricity back on,” Mgaga said.
Eskom’s media desk said after a technical team investigated the cause of the fire, a decision would be made.
