50 roaming water tanker trucks, 56 stationary ones deployed amid Joburg water crisis

The City of Johannesburg MMC for Environment and Infrastructure Service Jack Sekwaila says the city’s water disruptions will continue until further notice. 

The city is facing challenges in pumping water, leading to intermittent or no water supply for residents in the affected zones.

Addressing media on Friday on the water challenges, Sekwaila said Johannesburg Water had deployed 50 roaming water tanker trucks and positioned 56 stationary water tanks.

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“We are pumping water in Rahima Musa Mother and Child Hospital Roof 10 to ensure patients have enough water supply.

“While the Helen Joseph Hospital is being fed directly through the tower system, Johannesburg Water regularly monitors the supply to both hospitals. Johannesburg Water has also been sending out communication twice a day to update residents and ward councilors on the system,” he said. 

Sekwaila said watering of gardens was prohibited between 6am and 6pm. Residents are also prohibited from washing pavements and cars using hose pipes. 

See below areas affected by the water disruption

#JoburgUpdates ^P pic.twitter.com/Fk4NHppdog

— Johannesburg Water (@JHBWater) September 22, 2023

Tuesday thunderstorm

Johannesburg Water said it faced a setback when power tripped at Rand Water’s Zuikerbosch Water Treatment Plant. 

The power failure, which happened at midnight on Tuesday, affected several Johannesburg Water systems for all the municipalities supplied by Zuikerbosch, including Johannesburg. 

READ MORE: Vulnerable residents desperate over nonstop water outages

The Johannesburg Water’s systems were already struggling, and Rand Water’s systems were also strained by the high consumption. 

“Following the power trip, Rand Water technical teams attempted to restart the plant, however, this revealed faults along the overhead power lines supplying the auxiliary plant. The power failure resulted in the loss of 2 000 million litres of water per day,” said the entity. 

“As a result, Rand Water is struggling to fill up its systems, which has a negative knock-on effect on the already struggling Johannesburg Water systems.

“The entity had been mitigating the situation of the struggling systems on a day-to-day basis by the daily throttling (reducing pressure and flow) of reservoirs, providing alternative water supply, as well as accelerating leak detections and placing extra teams on the ground to ensure response times to bursts and leak repairs are accelerated.”