Durban — A trip at a sub-station in Durban has left many parts of the eThekwini Municipality without power on Monday afternoon.
The incident has been confirmed by the eThekwini Municipality, which said the City is aware of a trip at the high voltage major sub-station in Klaarwater, south-west of Durban.
“Many areas across the city are affected. Technicians are investigating the fault and further updates will be provided,” the municipality said.
Meanwhile, ward councillor Sakhile Mngadi added that it was a circuit that tripped at the sub-station.
“The good news is that power will be restored once circuits are isolated fairly soon,” Mngadi said.
He said that municipal staff were already attending to the outage.
It is believed that areas affected include Pinetown, Overport, Berea, Sydenham, Morningside, Greyville, Asherville, Mayville, Asherville, Glenwood, Westville, Merebank and Seaview.
The Chatsworth Crime Watch said that reports were received from a number of areas such as the Upper Highway, Klaarwater, Mariannhill, Malvern and Durban North up to oThongathi.
According to a traffic notice, traffic lights within the municipality will not be working due to widespread power outages and stage 6 load shedding.
“Please treat this as a four-way stop and allow extra travel time,” the traffic notice read.
Reacting to news of the widespread power outage, this is how Facebook users reacted:
Richard Vause: “We are in the middle of a heatwave and now the power has gone and tripped a major part of Durban. What a mess. Please take care, drink plenty of water and no hard work.”
Melissa Holder: “You guys are the cause for people with high BP getting sick. For our meds for diabetics getting damaged, for our little food one these days can afford to go off. This government and Eskom are corrupt and are bringing this country down. It’s time for people to say enough is enough!”
Katalin Mercer: “No power Morningside on what feels like the hottest day of the century. More useless by the day ... our country is being run to the ground.”
Smangaliso Shangase: “I have no power to keep up with your failure to provide power.”
Initially, Mngadi had urged residents to desist from spreading unconfirmed and unverified information regarding the widespread outage. He said they would only share verified information from municipal sources.
Mngadi added that spreading unnecessary misinformation created unnecessary panic.
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