<\/p>\n
An explosion on power lines that feed a key water-pumping hub risks cutting supply to parts of South Africa\u2019s commercial hub of Johannesburg and key platinum- and gold-mining towns to the city\u2019s west, the continent\u2019s biggest bulk-water supplier said.<\/p>\n
The blast at 2 a.m. Thursday knocked out electricity supply to the Eikenhof booster station, interrupting its operation, Rand Water said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The facility pumps treated water to reservoirs that serve the western and northern parts of Johannesburg as well as the platinum-mining hub of Rustenburg and the town of Driefontein, which has mines owned by Sibanye Stillwater Valterra Platinum and Impala Platinum Holdings have operations in Rustenburg.<\/p>\n
ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n
Residents of Johannesburg suburbs including Maraisburg, Parktown, Newlands, Weltevreden Park, Roodepoort, Radiokop and parts of Soweto reported no supply on Thursday morning.<\/p>\n
The affected network serves several million people, although Rand Water didn\u2019t estimate how many customers would actually experience interruptions.<\/p>\n
\u201cAreas supplies by these reservoirs are likely to experience low water pressure or intermittent supply until pumping operations resume,\u201d the utility said. \u201cVarious industries, mines and direct customers may also be affected.\u201d<\/p>\n
City Power expects to restore Eikenhof\u2019s electricity supply today, Rand Water said.<\/p>\n
The cuts are happening a day before Rand Water is due to undertake a maintenance shutdown that will affect most parts of Johannesburg and its surrounding cities to upgrade Eikenhof and Zuikerbosch, Africa\u2019s biggest water-treatment plant.<\/p>\n
The outages are the latest sign of a water-supply crisis that\u2019s affecting some of the country\u2019s biggest cities because of inadequate maintenance, limited investment in infrastructure and poor management.<\/p>\n
Last year, parts of Johannesburg were left without water for weeks after reservoirs struggled to recover from scheduled maintenance and as criminals vandalised a key pipeline.<\/p>\n
In a February speech acknowledging that scores of municipalities are dysfunctional and unable to provide basic services, President Cyril Ramaphosa committed R156 billion ($9.5 billion) for water infrastructure and sanitation over the next three years and set up a national water-crisis committee that he will chair to tackle the problem.<\/p>\n
\u00a9 2026 Bloomberg<\/p>\n
#Rand #Water #warns #blast #South #Africa #water #plant #hit #supply<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An explosion on power lines that feed a key water-pumping hub risks cutting supply to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[2364,5280,1251,1761,1648,322,424,372,1392],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11264"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11264\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}