Pretoria hit with massive water outage after major blackout
Huge areas of Tshwane, and parts of Midrand, have been hit with a widespread water outage following a major power outage over the weekend.
The Njala Substation suffered a massive fault on Saturday, 31 January, leading to a six-hour outage across the metro.
While power was restored to all areas by 23h00 that evening, the city was then hit with a rapid decline in reservoir levels tied to Rand Water’s Palmiet system.
On Sunday, 1 February, water reservoirs were depleting rapidly, with low pressure being experienced across the system.
In an attempt to protect critical supplies, the city diverted water from other reservoirs to stabilise some flow; however, this proved ineffective.
On Monday (2 February), the city alerted residents that the situation remained unchanged, and that an overnight assessment of the system showed that things were deteriorating even further.
“The city has noted a further deterioration in the water supply network, with no improvement recorded in Rand Water supply pressures,” it said.
“As a result, several reservoirs across the system remain critically low or have become depleted.”
The following reservoirs are currently empty:
- Laudium
- Atteridgeville High Level
- Pretoriusrand
- Lotus Gardens
- The Reeds
- Soshanguve DD
- Soshanguve L
- Mabopane Maine
- Mabopane Central
- Mabopane Reservoir System
- Atteridgeville Low Level
- Louwlardia
“Louwlardia Reservoir has also run dry, bringing the total number of empty reservoirs within the city to 12, with no sign of pressure improvement from Rand Water supply. The situation continues to have a negative impact across Palmiet-supplied areas,” the city said.
The following reservoirs are declining rapidly:
- Heights High Level
- Kruisfontein
- Klipgat
- Klapperkop
With system pressures remaining critically low, the city warned that additional reservoirs are at risk of being lost.
“Technical teams remain on high alert and are continuously monitoring pressures, flows and reservoir levels across the network,” it said.
The City of Joburg is also being impacted by the outage, with the metro noting that water supply from the Palmiet system to Rand Water’s Klipfontein Reservoir Complex suffering.
This has resulted in critically low reservoir levels within the CoJ’s Midrand system. This has been compounded by leaks on the network, which also require repairs, it said.
In the City of Joburg, the following reservoirs have no inflow:
- Erands Reservoir
- President Park Reservoir
- Grand Central Reservoir
- Rabie Ridge Reservoir
- Diepsloot Reservoir
Residents have been urged to use water sparingly to help slow further depletion while recovery efforts continue.
No timelines have been given on when water will be restored.
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