An attempt to steal electric cable could be to blame for the fire at a substation in Kempton Park on Tuesday, the Ekurhuleni municipality said on Wednesday.
General manager for electricity and energy Mark Wilson said the fire started about 2.30pm on Tuesday and was extinguished at 6pm.
”At this point we only have our suspicions that it was an attempted cable theft outside the substation area,” he said.
The entire Boksburg area north of Main Reef Road remained in dark by noon on Wednesday.
Wilson said that three other substations in the area — which were fed by the Kempton Park substation — were offline as a result of the fire.
He said once power had been restored to those three, 80% of the power would be restored to the area.
”An 80% restoration by the end of the day is still on target,” he said.
He said the remaining 20% of power, to be restored to the Kempton Park substation, could take up to a week as the site had been badly damaged by the fire.
It was estimated that the damage to the substation was at least R25-million to R30-million.
Ekurhuleni metro police spokesperson Chief Superintendent Wilfred Kgasago said pointsmen had been posted at major intersections to manage the traffic.
”We are going to cover as many important intersections as we can to ensure a fairly free flow of traffic,” he said.
Kgasago said traffic was expected to be more severely affected on Thursday as fewer cars were travelling on the roads on Wednesday due to the public-service strike.
”Especially from tomorrow [Thursday] it will be a big issue as there will be a full volume of traffic,” he said. — Sapa