With hundreds of homes entering their third day without water, the question on everyone’s lips is: When will the water be back on and WHY did the system fail?

The WHEN is rather easy to answer: Water should be restored late this afternoon or during the evening, according to uThukela.

Read also: Water Wednesday: All you need to know about water affairs this week

Read also:  Update: uThukela struggles to restore water to hundreds of homes

Read also: Watch: uThukela explain what went wrong with the water supply

The WHY requires a more in-depth and longer explanation. Let’s start with what we actually know. uThukela’s Ezakheni Clean Water Pump Station went down sometime during the late parts of Saturday night.

The pump station sends water to the Abattoir Hill reservoir, which supplies water to Acaciavale and surrounding areas.

In total, the pump station has 4 pumps which work in a configuration to provide sufficient water pressure to allow the water to reach all the areas.

Technicians are at the pump station busy working to repair an electrical fault which blew the switch gear and conductor on the control panel.

The repair is a highly skilled operation being carried out by private technicians from Newcastle. uThukela staff don’t have the skill set to repair such a complex failure at the station. The root cause of the failure is unknown at this stage.

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