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- Several Cape Town residents are still without power as repair efforts continue after the Mother City was plunged into darkness on Monday night.
- This was due to a "technical fault on the grid".
- Power has been restored to parts of the CBD, while the Atlantic seaboard was expected to be back up by 15:00 on Tuesday.
City of Cape Town officials are scrambling to resolve the massive power outage which has seen several areas in the CBD plunged into darkness since Monday night.
Now fears are growing that the damage to a high voltage cable could be more serious than initially anticipated and could take much longer to fix.
The City's mayoral committee member for energy and climate change, Beverley Van Reenen, said the cause of the outage had been identified as major cable damage to City and Eskom feeders in conjunction with the loss of a conductor on the Eskom overhead line.
"The cable damage resulted in major tripping of all cables feeding Area 7," Van Reenen added.
She said supply cables that weren't in service due to maintenance had now been brought on as an alternative supply feed.
"These have been returned to service and the load to portions of the City Bowl and Eastern side of the CBD has been restored. Supply to the rest of the affected areas will be returned, load permitting. It is anticipated that all load should be restored by this evening," she said.
Van Reenen said the City was considering starting up the gas turbines at Roggebaai as an alternative source of electricity supply.
Supply had, meanwhile, been restored to the upper and eastern parts of the CBD, including Tamboerskloof and Vredehoek. Work is underway to restore electricity in other affected areas.
"I'm pleased that power has been restored in Woodstock, Vredehoek, Gardens, Tamboerskloof, District Six, around Constitution Street, parts of the eastern CBD and down to Chiappini Street and parts of the Foreshore."
"There are still parts of the Atlantic Seaboard and CBD that are out and our teams are working non-stop to get that up as soon as possible via the Tafelbaai High Voltage Substation," she added.
This is a developing story
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