Power back on in Kempton Park

2008-04-29 09:08

Johannesburg - Power was restored to Kempton Park on Gauteng's East Rand at around 03:30 on Tuesday after just under seven days of darkness, the Ekurhuleni municipality said.

Spokesperson Zweli Dlamini said an investigation into the cause of the outage, which the municipality initially estimated would last between a minimum of seven days and a maximum of ten days, was underway.

"We are still investigating the cause, we are not sure, we cannot rule out anything at this stage. There is no load shedding this week so that will help to check on the cause without any interruption," he said.

The entire East Rand suburb was plunged into darkness last Tuesday after a fire at a local substation. Power was restored to around 75% of the area within 24 hours, but the balance remained without electricity until early Tuesday morning.

Dlamini said the municipality understood that both businesses and residents were affected by the outage but added the outage was unplanned.

- SAPA