City Power unable to confirm when power will be restored in Joburg CBD

City Power says it is not able to determine when power will be restored in most parts of the Johannesburg CBD and Selby following an outage from the Fordsburg substation.

The outage happened around 08:00 after a fire in underground tunnels in Ntemi Piliso street tripped two main lines.

Smoke is still billowing from the manholes leading to the underground tunnels where fire started.
All the teams are onsite currently assessing the impact, even though, for safety reasons, we are not yet able to reach some parts of the underground tunnels. @CityofJoburgZA pic.twitter.com/opDZ3rx00s

— @CityPowerJhb (@CityPowerJhb) March 28, 2022

The one feeds the Central Substation which affects the entire CBD and the other one the Selby substation affecting most of the industrial areas in the east of the city.

The city’s MMC for Environment and Infrastructure Services Michael Sun says the situation underground is still dangerous.

“City Power technicians are still not able to go down because it’s still unsafe, but we’ll ensure this matter is dealt with. EMS is on site. City Power technicians are here. Once we get down to the tunnel, will be able to assess the damage.”

City Power explains more in the statement below: 

#FordsburgOutage #Central outage.

City Power teams are still unable to access the tunnels due to the safety concerns. ^MM pic.twitter.com/CdxTxmp4Ze

— @CityPowerJhb (@CityPowerJhb) March 28, 2022