The City of Cape Town says due to the extent of Monday night’s incident that led to a power outage in several parts of the CBD, Woodstock and on the Atlantic Seaboard, it might take longer to restore the electricity supply than expected.
A spokesperson says emergency repair work continued throughout the night and different electricity supply routes have been used as a contingency measure to mitigate the situation.
However, it has been reported that passenger trains on at least one line on the Cape Flats have been cancelled and that traffic lights in the CBD are not working.
Early yesterday evening, one of two high voltage lines running parallel to one another fell on top of the other.
This caused a massive short when it landed on the ground in the vicinity of Century City and led the vegetation in a bushy area to ignite.
The fire has been contained and electricity teams are working to restore the power outage.
The City’s Electricity Generation and Distribution Department has been working throughout the night to restore power to Area 7 using different supply routes as one of the main feeder lines from the City’s Acacia High Voltage Substation to Montagu Gardens has been lost. #CTNews pic.twitter.com/wrh9XXDK5V
— City of Cape Town (@CityofCT) December 21, 2021
Meanwhile, Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis says electricity teams from the city and Eskom have begun to fix the two high voltage lines.
Hill-Lewis says they hope to restore one of the lines in the next few hours.
“We hope that at least one of those high voltage lines will be restored in the next few hours, restoring some of the electricity to the CBD, and the other will take slightly longer because there’s a number of other components that have blown along the line, as a result of the fault.”
I’m at the Montague sub-station where @CityofCT engineers and teams are working on power restoration. Switching on of Woodstock, parts of CBD and Tamboerskloof is beginning now. Teams continue to work on cable repair to restore other parts of CBD and Seaboard. pic.twitter.com/8zYGrYi3CU
— Geordin Hill-Lewis (@geordinhl) December 21, 2021
