Cape Town – Following a fire in the M1 highway tunnel, which caused power outages in parts of Johannesburg’s inner city earlier this month, City Power has made significant progress in restoring electricity.
Although there were some delays, cable installation from the Bree Substation to Newtown Junction has been completed, the regional power utility said, according to The Citizen.
“We were unable to meet the 14h00 timeframe. The cable has been livened up and is now floating,” City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said.
To ensure safety, he said that City Power is gradually restoring power to affected areas, with completion expected by early Monday morning.
“With these extra efforts from our teams since the fire on the M1 tunnels, almost 85% of the customers have been restored, while repairs are continuing at the site of the fire,” said Mangena.
The devastating fire, suspected to be caused by cable theft, severely damaged infrastructure on the M1 bridge, requiring over R30 million for repairs, a report said last week.
City Power estimated that R23 million was needed to restore its infrastructure, while the Johannesburg Roads Agency required R10 million to fix damage to the bridge and its support structure, SABC reported.
City Power Group Executive for Service Delivery, Charles Tlouane said it will take nearly two weeks to restore normal operations.
“From City Power point of view, the overall work is going to cost R23 million. We had 11 kv cables, telecommunications cables in that bridge. We had 88 oil filled cables. So, we are replacing those by their own entirety,” Tlouane was quoted as saying.
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Compiled by Betha Madhomu
