Although the City of Ekurhuleni managed to connect a few areas, most of the suburbs affected by the power outage since Friday morning, were still out on Monday morning.
According to a statement posted on its website on Sunday night, the City said the outage was caused when a 66 000 Volt oil-filled power cable was damaged by a veld fire.
The cable runs through a tunnel between a substation and affected customers.
The City has been working around the clock to restore power to all areas of Kempton Park.
The cable, due to its technically complicated nature, requires more than five days to restore to its original functionality. It needs to be cleaned, flushed with oil, refilled with new oil, vacuumed, and tested in a time-controlled procedure.
This work requires specialised skills and is done by personnel from the cable manufacturer.
Due to the length of the period it takes to restore the affected cable to its original functionality, the City was able to connect some areas to the grid through a temporary power cable.
Due to its limited capacity, some areas remain without power to avoid overloading and tripping of the other main supplies.
The City is also leveraging on its partnership with Eskom and the City of Tshwane to speedily complete this work by obtaining much needed components.
The power supply interruption in Benoni from Friday, which has since been addressed, was not related to this incident.
The City apologises for the inconvenience caused to customers and continues to work on 24-hour shifts to restore power to all areas by Tuesday.
