Pretoria East residents live in the cold and dark

Substation crash leads to power loss

As temperatures plummeted in Gauteng‚ thousands of residents in parts of Pretoria East have have had to live without electricity for the past six days after an electrical fault destroyed the Wapadrand substation.

Daleen du Plessis of Equestria in Pretoria said her life had become unbearable.

“It is very difficult. I had an eye operation and cataracts removed in both my eyes. At night I have to stand by candlelight to put in the drops. It’s difficult to do that,” she said.

However‚ she acknowledged that the city was communicating well by giving residents regular updates on its efforts to restore power.

Darryl Moss‚ Tshwane MMC of utility services‚ said the city was doing its own investigation into what led to the power outage‚ while an insurance provider was running a separate investigation.

“What we do know is that there was a giant electrical fault. What caused that‚ we really are not sure at this stage‚” Moss said.

“This affected the whole area around Wapadrand‚ Faerie Glen‚ Silver Lakes‚ Koedoeberg... It was a huge area. We’ve had thousands and thousands of residents offline for almost a week now.”

He added that it was still difficult to state with certainty what time all the affected areas would have electricity. –