MBOMBELA – Eskom has blamed the electric fault, which left residents of Nsikazi South without water for more than 12 hours over the weekend, on the municipality.
Spokesman for Eskom Mr Eric Khoza confirmed that there was an electrical fault at the KaNyamazane Water Treatment Plant on Saturday.
“The fault was a result of equipment failure from the customer’s side which resulted in damages to Eskom’s equipment. Eskom cannot comment further on this matter and requests for further details should be directed to the municipality concerned. As Eskom, our responsibility stops at the metering point.”
Mbombela Local Municipality spokesman Mr Joseph Ngala said they were unaware of Eskoms claims.
“When I personally visited the treatment works on Sunday afternoon, none of the Eskom technicians who were onsite said anything about equipment failure on the municipality’s side. We will investigate this claim and respond in due course.”
Electric fault leaves residents without water for more than 12 hours: July 7 2015, 12:40
MBOMBELA – A power outage left the residents of Nsikazi South without water for more than 12 hours over the weekend.
Mbombela Local Municipality spokesman Mr Joseph Ngala said on Sunday that the interruptions had been due to an electrical fault on the Eskom line at the KaNyamazane Water Treatment Works which had tripped the electricity supply to the plant. The residents of KaNyamazane up to KaBokweni were affected by the water shortage.
“The electricity at the KaNyamazane Water Treatment Works is supplied by Eskom. The outage was detected around 19:30 on
Saturday and Eskom was informed of the problem immediately. Unfortunately they could only respond the following morning as per their own internal practice,” Ngala said.
He confirmed that normal supply of water had been restored on Sunday evening.
“However, it must be understood that in any outage that leads to a complete shutdown of the system it takes even longer for everyone to have water again as levels in all the reservoirs dropped to almost zero. In most instances this requires backwashing the system before pumping (water in again). The immediate areas of KaNyamazane received water around 18:00 on Sunday.”
He added that priority had been given to supply critical areas such as Themba Hospital, which is located at the end of the line. “The hospital had water during this outage,” Ngala explained. “Management of the hospital always alert the municipality when they have crisis. Apart from the main reservoir that supplies the entire KaBokweni area, the hospital has a tank internally for contingencies.”
Staff confirmed that water supply to Themba had been restored by Monday morning.
- Read more on a previous incident with KaNyamazane’s water here.
