Lines down!
Working in limited space, with the new cables having been fed under the R619, technicians have the mammoth task of reconnecting 2 400 pairs of cable wires
TELKOM cable repair teams have worked day and night since Thursday to reconnect 2 400 telephone subscribers, mainly in the Richards Bay CBD.
They expected about 25% of the lines to have been restored by Sunday night and the remainder by the Monday night.
This will come as a huge relief to retail and commercial business that took a big knock when the existing main cable from the Arboretum telephone exchange was ripped out on Thursday morning – ironically, while technicians were putting in additional cable lines.
Municipal, hospital and medical services were also without land lines.
Workers installing new optic fibre cables at the corner of East Central Arterial and the R619 (North Central Arterial) accidentally destroyed the buried cable, which was far closer to the trench surface than they believed.
It is understood the cables had been raised from a two metre depth to less than a metre below the surface when the R619 was widened.
Technicians on scene on Sunday morning said the 2 400 pair cable was being replaced by a number of smaller cables over a length of about 200 metres.
Feeding the new cables under the R619 would prove a major task, as would the job of reconnecting 2 400 pairs of telephone wires and sealing the joint in the limited space the working trench offers.
•Netcare The Bay Hospital issued a statement on Saturday morning indicating temporary cell phone numbers to deal with the land line loss impact: Emergency department/Trauma 076 7336638; Hospital reception 079 3392686; Ambulance 082 911.
