/ 24 March 2011

Pretoria power to be restored on Thursday

The power supply to the Pretoria West area was expected to be restored by Thursday afternoon, the city said on Wednesday.

“Technicians will work through the night and start connecting cables. We should have full power restored by tomorrow afternoon,” city spokesperson Console Tleane said.

He said power supply had been restored to 50% of residents in the area.

Residents were requested to switch off non-essential appliances and to treat all electrical equipment as live.

Tleane apologised on behalf of the city for the inconvenience caused by the power failures.

The Pretoria CBD was without power again on Wednesday from noon.

“It is not yet clear what might have caused the problem,” said Tleane.

The power outage was affecting the same areas that were without electricity for over four days last week.

These were areas west of the CBD, including Pretoria West industrial park.

The power was initially disrupted during an attempted cable theft last Tuesday, when a 30 square centimetre copper cable — carrying 132 kilovolts of electricity — was damaged. — Sapa