By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The City of Johannesburg has revealed that a report has been compiled to declare the Lilian Ngoyi Street (formerly Bree Street) gas explosion a local state of disaster.
City Manager Floyd Brink briefed the media on Wednesday on the progress made in restoring electricity and water to the affected areas in the inner city.
The explosion resulted in the death of one person, while 40 others sustained injuries.
Brink said the city had begun the necessary process to declare the explosion a local state of disaster.
“The declaration of the disaster is critical in order to allow us to assess the impact of the explosion on infrastructure and to cost the rehabilitation work required.
“To classify the disaster accordingly in line with the Act and to declare the disaster accordingly once the outlined processes have been concluded.
“We have mandated the Disaster Management Centre to commence with the processes and to finalize a report for submission to the Provincial Disaster Management Centre within the next seven days,” explained Brink.
Brink said City Power has successfully restored power to the area, and the feeder cables under the collapsed road surface have also been restored.
“Johannesburg Water has also concluded repair work to two broken sewer connections at Bree (Lillian Ngoyi) and Loveday Streets and at Bree and Von Brandis Streets.
“This has enabled the reconnection of sewer services to the area, and as of today, we are confident all residents in the area should be reconnected and have access to regular sewer services.”
He said the repair work on the damaged water main on Bree and Loveday Streets is expected to be completed by Wednesday afternoon.
Brink said though there was no conclusion on which type of gas exploded, methane was ruled out.
Meanwhile City Power has once again expressed concern over the spike in the vandalism of its infrastructure following the discovery of two burnt bodies at the utility’s substations.
Authorities suspect the two men died while attempting to steal cables.
On Tuesday, a body was discovered inside the transformer substation in Randburg, while the second body was found in a ditch near the Nancefield substation in Lenasia.
City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena says they suspect the two were electrocuted while attempting to steal high-voltage electricity copper cables.
“We are concerned about the frequent incidents of vandalism on our infrastructure, especially in the Randburg, Roodepoort and Lenasia areas.
“Since the weekend, City Power has recorded at least 14 incidents of vandalism on our mini-substations in the Randburg and Roodepoort areas alone, in what we characterise as deliberate sabotage on our operations.”
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