/ 7 April 2011

Parts of northern Jo’burg without power

Power to northern Johannesburg suburbs would be partly restored by Thursday evening after an explosion inside a sub-station, an official said.

Power to northern Johannesburg suburbs would be partly restored by Thursday evening after a technical fault caused an explosion inside a sub-station, an official said.

“At this stage, we believe we’ll have the majority of supply restored tonight [Thursday], but full repairs will only be done by tomorrow morning,” said city power spokesperson Louis Pieterse, adding that this was an early assessment and that the situation could change during the day.

“It would appear as if this was a technical fault. One of the cables faulted, causing an explosion which damaged other cables.”

He said there was limited space in the basement area where the cables needed to be fixed.

“We cannot get a lot of teams in there and that’s why it is taking so long to do the repairs.”

The affected areas include Norwood, Melrose, parts of Houghton and Killarney. — Sapa