#FakeNewsAlert: There is no six hour blackout today

Published Dec 6, 2018

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Durban - A social media post claiming that the country would be plunged into six hours of darkness today is a hoax Eskom said.

On Wednesday Eskom spokesperson Khulu Phasiwe used Twitter to alert South Africans to the fake message.

Phasiwe said: “ALERT: A message doing the rounds on social media alleging that there won't be electricity tomorrow for the whole day is fake news. Where load shedding becomes a necessity, usually Eskom & municipalities implement it for a maximum of 4 hours per area. If in doubt, call 0860037566.”

Some people have agreed that it is a hoax and that the same post was circulated a year or two ago.

Load shedding has been re-implemented and people can check on their areas by visiting the Eskom website or that of their local municipality.

ALERT: A message doing the rounds on social media alleging that there won't be electricity tomorrow for the whole day is fake news. Where loadshedding becomes a necessity, usually Eskom & municipalities implement it for a maximum of 4 hours per area. If in doubt, call 0860037566.

— Eskom Spokesperson (@KhuluPhasiwe) December 5, 2018

There are other ways of staying informed about load shedding, through the use of apps.

There are free apps that act as Eskom load shedding status monitors and notifiers. The Load Shedding Notifier is one of many apps that monitor the current Eskom load shedding status and notifies you if the power is scheduled to go off in your area.

The app includes schedules for all Eskom supplied areas nationwide and municipality supplied areas such as eThekwini, Johannesburg and Cape Town.

Other areas are added frequently, based on user requests.

Key features:

• Configurable alerts.

• Very low data usage.

• Power grid status monitoring.

• Multiple areas can be configured.

• Configure quiet times for each area.

• Configurable status update frequency.

• Real-time Eskom load shedding status monitoring.

• Early warning of scheduled load shedding in your areas.

• View load shedding schedules for your areas for the following month.

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