City Power expects to finish reconnecting electricity supplies on Friday to parts of the Johannesburg central business district, which suffered an outage after an underground fire.
“We still hope to finish the repairs and restore power to the rest of the affected customers including Selby and Westgate by Friday – if all goes according to plan,” said City Power Spokesperson Isaac Mangena on Wednesday.
“In the meantime, more affected areas within the CBD were restored through backfeeding from Van Beek Substation. They include Commissioner Street, Fox Street, and Market Street.”
The underground fire that took more than a day to put out burnt cables in the tunnel and cut off electricity supply lines.
“The fire, which started on Monday morning caused extensive damage to about a km of the underground tunnel,” said Mangena.
He said the clean-up continued until late Wednesday afternoon, after which the laying of the new cables and accompanying joints could start.
“Repairs work commenced well in the underground tunnels since the morning, with the damaged infrastructure including cables mopped up and brought to the surface,” said Mangena.
“We apologise for the inconvenience caused.”
