Fallen cables and a blown substation responsible for Richards Bay power outages

While fallen cables sparked Monday night’s power outage across Richards Bay, the Polaris substation blew up during the night, compounding the situation.

The majority of Bay residents were literally left in the dark last night, with the different suburbs experiencing power outages of different durations.

ALSO READ: Fallen cables cause mass power outage in Richards Bay

Initially reported just before 4pm, by 5pm the cause had been determined and attributed to cables that had collapsed across the road near the west entrance of the Port of Richards Bay.

The estimated repair time was in the vicinity of five hours. However, just after 7pm, power was restored to Meerensee and was intermittently restored to other suburbs, only to go off again after a short time, and then again in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

This second power failure was caused by the Polaris substation blowing up during the night. Olga Rudolph, a Veldenvlei resident, stated that her power was on for only five minutes before it went off again.

Meerensee, too, was once again without power, at 1am, according to resident Keri Binks.

Meanwhile, by 7am Mandlazini had only experienced a brief restoration of power, before being plunged back into darkness.

Electricity was only fully restored to Richards Bay at 6.50am, which left many residents upset as their schedules had been impeded by the outage.

Barbara Skinner and her family were seriously affected, owing to her children struggling to study for their exams the following day.

Mdu Ncalane, uMhlathuze Municipal communications officer said that the loss of the Polaris substation would lead to planned power outages in the near future, owing to the strain that is being placed on the grid.

The damaged pylon which set the whole outage in motion, may take close to a month to be fully repaired.

HAVE YOUR SAY

Like our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter.

For news straight to your phone invite us:

WhatsApp – 072 069 4169

Instagram – zululand_observer