City Power officials suspect that the massive fire which broke out at the Eikenhof substation on Monday, 27 August, may have been a result of a deliberate act of sabotage.
The City of Joburg’s Executive Mayor Herman Mashaba released a statement yesterday, 28 August, in which he said that a video had emerged proving that the fire had originated outside the transformer.
“Further to this, the transformer appeared to have been maliciously damaged so that it would leak oil onto the fire,” the statement read.
Earlier, the fire was believed to have been started by an electrical fault. Mashaba stated that the emerging facts are not consistent with this.
“I have requested that City Power immediately refer this matter to the City’s Group Forensics and Investigation Services (GFIS) and the South African Police Services for further investigation,” he said.
A video emerged proving the fire had originated outside the transformer at the substation. Further, the transformer appeared to have been maliciously damaged so it would leak oil onto the fire. These facts are simply not consistent with a fire originating from an electrical fault pic.twitter.com/0ZLYXeWb2W
— Herman Mashaba (@HermanMashaba) August 28, 2018
The substation provides electricity to large surrounding areas of residents, businesses, and powers the Rand Water facility. The Rand Water infrastructure pumps water to around 40% of Joburg and technicians, along with engineers, have worked around the clock to repair the substation.
Joburg Water has tweeted that power was restored and Rand Water began pumping water at 4am this morning, 29 August.
Power has been restored in #Eikenhof. Rand Water started pumping at 04h00am this morning. ^NN
— Johannesburg Water (@JHBWater) August 29, 2018
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