Just after 7am this morning (Tuesday) businesses surrounding the Elsburg Substation heard a loud bang.<\/p>\n
After which several suburbs were plunged into darkness.<\/p>
The cause of the outage has been confirmed as an explosion and building collapse at the Elsburg Substation in Ostend Road.<\/p>\n
The affected areas include, but are not limited to, Delville, Collin Wade, the industrial area of Germiston South, industrial areas fed from Enterprise, and parts of Hazeldene, Germiston South, Elsburg and the Germiston CBD.<\/p>
The GCN visited the scene and spoke to Ekurhuleni chief area engineer Peter Khunou who explained an investigation was underway to discover the cause of the explosion.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not sure when exactly the explosion happened or what the cause was,\u201d Khunou said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are hoping to have more answers by this afternoon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Khunou further explained that while teams were on the ground investigating, calls were being made to assess whether or not a portable substation could be brought to the site.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are hoping to restore power to the affected areas temporarily while repairs to the substation are done,\u201d Khunou explained.<\/p>\n
Khunou explained one of the setbacks faced when restoring power is getting all the relevant departments together so that decisions can be made.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis can make determining a turnaround time difficult,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Ward 39 councillor Alta de Beer and DA PR councillor Sally Nene were also on scene and will communicate updates to the community affected by the outage.<\/p>\n
In a statement\u00a0Themba Gadebe , spokesman for the metro, estimated that power will be restore by 9am tomorrow (Wednesday).<\/p>\n
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