• The return of water to many areas of Johannesburg may be delayed by around two days after an unplanned power outage affected a key pumping station.
• The outage occurred in the middle of a month-long maintenance campaign launched by Rand Water.
• Several areas across Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni have been impacted by the unplanned outage.

Amid a month-long maintenance campaign launched by Rand Water, many areas across Johannesburg have been dealing with little to no water for around a week, but now an unplanned power failure has resulted in a delay in the time that water will return to those affected areas.

According to a statement published by Rand Water, a power failure at the Zwartkopjes booster pumping station is affecting the recovery of water across the city in areas dealing with several days of outages. The utility says that the delay in returning the booster station back on track may add another two days to the recovery time.

“Some areas are already receiving water and it is anticipated that it might take up to two days for the system to fully recover and for all affected areas to receive water,” the statement reads. This means that water in affected areas across the city may only start trickling in during the weekend, as the statement was published on Thursday.

The power failure at Zwartkopjes occurred at 18:30 on Wednesday and lasted until 3:30 in the morning on Thursday. The failure has caused pumping to Forest Hill, Yeobvile, Meredale and Benoni reservoirs to be affected, slowing the return of water to those facilities.

Impacted systems in Johannesburg include:

• Randburg,
• Roodepoort,
• Hursthill,
• Crosby,
• Brixton,
• Crown Gardens,
• Eagles Nest
• Aeroton,
• Johannesburg CBD,
• Parktown,
• and Yeoville.

Johannesburg Water is apparently still investigating the extent of which systems are being affected.

Impacted systems in Ekurhuleni include:

• Benoni,
• Morehill,
• Farrarmere,
• Northmead,
• Brentwood Park,
• Goedeburg,
• Rynfield,
• Rynfield AH,
• and Eboste Estate.

The Rand Water maintenance across a number of its infrastructure points is set to sporadically affect residents who use water from Johannesburg Water from 22nd June to 29th July 2024. The maintenance is being carried out to “improve reliability and efficiency,” the utility said earlier this month.

In the meanwhile, Johannesburg Water has rolled out a number of water tankers across the city for residents to fill up with. Many residents have taken to social media to complain that more water tankers are required to meet the water demand.

[Image – Photo by Amritanshu Sikdar on Unsplash]