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| A Massive explosion in Nelson Mandela Bay Image: Reuters |
On Saturday night, a significant substation in Nelson Mandela Bay's industrial growth zone burst, triggering extensive water disruptions in a city heavily struck by continuing water shortages and drought.
The explosion caused the third significant power outage to strike the water delivery system in four days. The substation showed traces of forced entry, according to authorities. Nelson Mandela Bay's water supply has been in trouble for some time, with supply dams holding only 6.97% of their capacity or around 19,114 megalitres.
Nelson Mandela Bay is one of the country's largest metropolises, challenging water crisis management. It gets most of its water from the Nooitgedacht Water System, which needs it to pump water from the east to the west, but power outages make this problematic.
This has adversely impacted our capacity to stabilize the system, which cannot match demand, Nelson Mandela Bay Executive Mayor Retief Odendaal said of the city's three major power outages since Thursday. The first saw a critical pump at the Motherwell Pump Station fail, preventing the metro from pumping water from the Nooitgedacht plan.
On Thursday night, an aerial cable on the Summit line cracked, tripping the Ditchling substation and knocking out the Loerie Pump Station, resulting in severe water loss. This means that different places will begin to experience water disruptions that might last up to a week.
On Sunday morning, Odendaal visited the substation and assembled the emergency joint operations committee.
The Nelson Mandela Bay Metro has initiated an inquiry into the Saturday night explosion at a substation in Motherwell, located within the Coega IDZ. The town is attempting to mitigate the effects of the blast while also determining what caused it.
Mthubanzi Mniki, a Metro spokesperson, stated that the metro was undertaking an utterly independent inquiry into the cause of the incident. Mniki estimates that the infrastructure damage is worth more than R4 million.
