A river of human waste continues to flow down a street near the Eskom site in Extension 11.
Keletso Motlale, a resident of Extension 11, says the current sewage spill started on 16 April, two days after the first one, from a different maintenance hole in the same street, stopped. According to him and a fellow resident, Thabang Kopele, they lodged several complaints about the first leak that began mid-February.
“The people who came to fix it said there was nothing they could do. They tried, but it wouldn’t stop and they left it like that,” said Motlale.
Around March, the residents complained again and the municipality attended to the matter. They said the municipal officials then resorted to digging a hole where the pipe was, in an attempt to help with the blockage. Kopele said this helped for a while, but then the blockage seemed to get worse and the sewage started flowing from the ditch and the unbearable stench lingered.
With the sewage streaming down the street, neither cars nor pedestrians can pass. Tebogo Motlhatlhedi said they have to jump over the waste water to get to the other side of the road, even to get to the tuckshop. “It is really unpleasant,” she stated. Kopele said people cling onto his wired-fence to get across and this has caused damage.
The community members’ greatest concern is their health and that of their children. “Our children play around there,” they say.
“It is getting worse; it’s even heading to our main road. Last week was bad, we couldn’t even use the toilets because they were blocked,” stated Motlale when he spoke to the Herald. He added that these were not isolated incidents. It was leaking sometime in October last year, but the municipal officials could fix it and the flow stopped.
The residents say they have contacted the municipality about the sewage spill on several occasions.
According to William Maphosa, the municipal spokesperson, there was confusion about where the sewage spill was located. The respective component contacted a resident directly, however, and they attended to the situation on Wednesday afternoon (29 April).
