Power cuts have led to an explosion of a substation in Walmer, Port Elizabeth, the Weekend Post reported on Sunday.
Municipal spokesperson Lourens Schoeman said the blast was caused when oil-based circuit breakers exploded due to power surges from load-shedding.
”We saw some smoke coming out and the whole place blew up. These switches are very old and they are not designed to be switched on and off,” municipal electricity technical manager Barnard Lamour said.
The explosion happened on Saturday, near the William Moffett Expressway and Main Road interchange, and put some parts of Nelson Mandela Bay in the dark throughout the day on Sunday.
The cold weather that moved in across large parts of the country on Sunday was expected to place additional demand on already strained electricity infrastructure, and Eskom advised users on Monday to use gas or anthracite heaters instead of electric ones. — Sapa