RESERVOIRS are filling up again after the failure of the South Coast Augmentation (SCA) pipeline’s Umlazi pump station on December 11, leaving around 1 million people from south of Umlazi to Pennington without water.

Also read: Pump failure causes water shortage in Amanzimtoti and beyond

Giving an update today (December 13), councillor André Beetge said engineers have been at the pump station for more than 24 hours trying to get the water flowing again.

“One pump reached full supply capacity at 04:14 this morning, followed by the second at 07:30. In just more than an hour since the second one started pumping, inflow into Amanzimtoti Water Works has levelled out to a consistent 70 megaliter per day flow rate. It’s now a matter of waiting for supply reservoir levels to increase to the point where there is sufficient pressure to feed both the gravity and pump-fed municipal reticulation system,” said Beetge.

He cautioned residents who have inundated the eThekwini Municipality’s call centre reporting the outage as it does not relate to bursts or damages, but results from inflow capacity to the bulk reservoirs.

“Personnel will be releasing air from the system as supply returns and discolouration can be expected, especially in dead ends, as supply returns,” he said.

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