Water in parts of Joburg to be fully restored by Wednesday afternoon

Rand Water says it will start pumping water into the system on Tuesday evening, after parts of Johannesburg were left without water due to emergency repairs on a pipeline that burst.

Giving a video update on site at a chamber in Nasrec, Rand Water’s group chief executive Sipho Mosai said the system will recover fully by late Wednesday afternoon.

Rand Water finalising repairs

“The welders are now finalising the fixing of the leak. On the right there, we have our team just finishing the last touch-up of the bracket that is going to come below the pipe,” Mosai said.

“So the pipe burst was taking place on top and underneath. We have closed the top part. We are now going to be using that bracket to close it off.”

On Monday, the water utility announced that pumping from the Eikenhof Pump Station was stopped to allow the repair work to be carried out.

Areas in Joburg affected by water outage

The emergency shutdown is affecting the water supply across several Johannesburg water systems, mainly in the West Rand.

The areas include those supplied by the Soweto, Commando, Randburg/Roodepoort and Deep South systems.

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Residents in the affected areas have been experiencing poor pressure to no water supply at all.

Earlier on Tuesday, Mosai said the repair work was difficult because of the high pressure of the water coming out of the pipe.

He added that all 13 valves feeding into the pipe were closed on Sunday and Rand Water was also trying to reduce pressure from the Eikenhof system.