By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Residents in the Joburg CBD and parts of Selby could be without power a while longer as City Power is on Monday still unable to provide an estimated time of restoration.
“The outage happened around 8 am after a fire in our underground tunnels at Ntemi Pilusa street tripped two main lines, “said City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena.
“We apologise to the affected customers for the inconvenience caused by this, ” said Mangena.
“Unfortunately we are not able to determine when power will be restored until the impact is assessed.
“We will update customers throughout for any developments.”
Smoke is still billowing from the manholes leading to the underground tunnels where fire started.
All the teams are onsite currently assessing the impact, even though, for safety reasons, we are not yet able to reach some parts of the underground tunnels. @CityofJoburgZA pic.twitter.com/opDZ3rx00s— @CityPowerJhb (@CityPowerJhb) March 28, 2022
City of Johannesburg Environment Infrastructure Service Department MMC Councillor Michael Sun said a warning of the underground blaze was received on City Power’s system on Monday morning.
“Unfortunately it’s still not safe for the firefighters to go down, so [firefighters will] tackle the tunnel from the other end to ensure we locate the seed of the fire, “Sun said.
This resulted in an outage at the Fordsburg substation. The Selby substation has also been affected, hitting most industrial areas east of Johannesburg.
Sun also said there has not yet been a need to evacuate residents or occupants in the area, but that the city would update those affected should the situation change.
Updates to follow as more information is made available.