City Power has warned there could be blackouts in Johannesburg CBD if their electricity infrastructure has been damaged due to the explosion. Picture: Timothy Bernard / African News Agency (ANA)
City Power has warned there could be blackouts in Johannesburg CBD if their electricity infrastructure has been damaged due to the explosion on Wednesday evening.
Isaac Mangena, the spokesperson for City Power, said their technicians were on site to determine the cause of the damage.
He said they have four transformers at a sub-station not too far from the site from the area hit by the explosion.
He said if their electricity infrastructure is affected it may take a while to get the power back on in the city.
But City Power technicians were on site to determine the cause and extent of the damage.
Mangena, who was speaking on Newzroom Afrika, said this was a serious incident and they were not at this stage certain what could have been the cause.
“We have got four transformers that are in that sub-station and other electricity supply infrastructure that is also there. The danger about it is that if this has affected our electricity infrastructure it means that we may have a situation where the residents within the CBD may not have electricity and by the look of the visuals that we are seeing on social media it may take a while before we basically recover.
“That can be determined after our teams have arrived on site and are able to assess the extent of the damage, if any, on our sub-station and also the cables that are running from south to north of Bree Street,” said Mangena.
He said the explosion appeared to have caused damage to businesses in the city centre.
But the engineers will be working through the night to establish the cause of the explosion.
siyabonga.mkhwanazi@inl.co.za
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