There are hopes that Unit 5 at Eskom’s Medupi Power Station in Limpopo could be returned to service as soon as Wednesday. Work has been taking place on the unit after a blast at Unit 4 during maintenance.
Unit 4 was badly damaged and may not be returned to service any time soon. Six staffers have been suspended amid a probe into the maintenance work.
Residents at Marapong township say they are still shaken after the loud blast.
“There was a blast at the power station so people were afraid. They don’t know what was going on, they thought maybe it was the issue of criminality. People are still shocked and they hear on tv that there was a blast there. We heard the sound around past 11 pm. So we are afraid and scared because we didn’t know what really happened,” says a resident.
Medupi Power station explosion worrisome for Lephalale residents and surrounding
Meanwhile, Eskom Spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshantsha says the work to assess the extent of the damage caused by the explosion has not yet started.
“The investigation into the cause of the explosion at Medupi Power Station to determine the cause and the extent of the damage and indeed the duration of the outage and indeed how much will cost to repair and when, will commence shortly. Eskom forensic audit team together with the insurance companies who have insured the unit will come to the infrastructure. What we can say is that the damage to the generation unit is quite extensive and it will be out for a while. We aren’t at this state able to quantify how long that will be,” says Mantshantsha.
Eskom suspends staff over Medupi blast: Sikonathi Mantshantsha
