City Power has begun switching electricity back on within the Johannesburg CBD after last week's explosion and expects all affected residents' power supply to be restored by Tuesday afternoon.
About 2,820 households along Lilian Ngoyi Street (formerly known as Bree) lost water and electricity after the suspected gas explosion that left one person dead and 48 injured.
City Power said at least 50% of the residents’ “load feeding” from Bree substation was energised at 11.40am on Tuesday. These include Bank City, Pritchard, Loveday, Jeppe, West, Diagonal, Sauer, Harrison, President and Simmons streets, and the surrounding area west of Lilian Ngoyi Street.
Those still off include streets east and north of Lilian Ngoyi St, part of President, Jeppe, Kerk, Plein, Loveday, Rissik, Harrison and Von Brandis streets.
“More tests are being done on other feeders, and cables are pressure-tested before further restoration happens. We expect every customer to be restored by this afternoon,” City Power said.
“The team worked hard overnight after the clearance was given by the emergency services, disaster management and labour department.
“The gas levels were cleared at 1% on the risk matrix.
“We also expect to restore the feeder cables under the collapsed road structure along [Lillian Ngoyi] Street after they tested clear during the initial testing this morning.”
TimesLIVE
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