The Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality will be relocating 18 families in Katlehong whose houses are at risk from dangerous sinkhole formations, the mayor announced on Tuesday.
This follows 11 reported incidences of dolomite instability in Katlehong and its surrounding areas since January this year.
”We will go in there and make interventions,” said executive Mayor Duma Nkosi during a media briefing in Germiston, east of Johannesburg.
”We don’t want to wait until there is a big problem before we respond.”
Pieter Janse van Rensburg, an Ekurhuleni metro engineer, explained that more than 60% of Katlehong and an unknown area of Thokoza was built on a grade-three geological substrate — a grade with a high risk of sinkhole formation.
Present laws restrict development on this type of land to parks or open space.
”People shouldn’t have been settled in a highly dolomitic area like that,” said Nkosi.
He said he would like to move people out of Katlehong, ”but I don’t know where to take them”.
”We must look at how to sustain what we have.”
The municipality has appointed Jones & Wagener Consulting Engineers to assist in the assessment and rehabilitation of the sinkholes.
”We call on all affected residents to cooperate and support council in this important and life-threatening situation,” Nkosi said. — Sapa