Cape Town – Johannesburg South residents have complained of prolonged water outages which have now reached day four.
Residents in suburbs such as Ridgeway, said they had been without water since Thursday as Joburg water tries to restore water in some areas.
Ridgeway residents are complaining that it has been four days without water following a major power outage affecting Rand Water’s Eikenhof pump station leaving several areas, including parts of Randburg and Roodepoort, without water.
Joburg Water had informed residents about the expected improvement in water supply on Friday, after a City Power outage.
Speaking to IOL, a Ridgeway resident Ravisha Chinnappa said the situation was “really frustrating” for residents, as some areas nearby had been attended to and the water supply restored.
“There has just been so much back and forth between Joburg Water as well as our ward councillor, because no one is actually telling the truth, and it has become a point of frustration because I have a child and now we have to ask for water in areas that have boreholes.
“The only feedback we have been receiving from the ward councillor and the City is that reservoirs and waters towers are empty, and they were below 50% when this crisis happened. And no one wants to come forward to address us, they don’t want to account…
“This is not the first time we have experienced such a crisis, in March this year we had the same thing where we did not have water for nine days.
“Some areas now have water, but in this area we have not had a single drop of water since Thursday,” Chinnappa said.
Meanwhile, Johannesburg Water said it continued to closely monitor the entity’s reservoirs and towers, and by Sunday morning, the majority of previously critically impacted systems had improved.
Johannesburg Water further said its infrastructure was gradually recovering after a pump failure at City Power’s Orlando power station on Thursday, leaving many areas in the city without water.
The water supplier also said that some areas may continue to experience supply challenges as water-levels at some reservoirs remain low and outlets of several reservoirs and pumps to specific towers had been isolated to reduce the recovery period, it said.
“Though Eikenhof station is pumping at normal capacity, it will take time for the affected Johannesburg reservoirs and towers to fully stabilise and operate normally.
“Customers in areas supplied by a direct feed have had their water supply restored. Once our reticulation – which includes reservoirs, towers, and pipelines – is back to normal capacity, customers will receive normal water supply,” Joburg Water said.
IOL