Africa-Press – South-Africa. Issues with the water networks in Johannesburg have severely affected public hospitals and left residents fuming as they navigate water and power outages.
According to Johannesburg Water, the high demand of water is affecting reservoirs and towers in the city.
It has flagged the Commando System, which includes the Crosby, Brixton and Hursthill systems, as “critically low to empty”.
Eagle Nest, Glenvista and Naturena reservoirs in Soweto, as well as Crown Gardens and Alan Manor reservoirs, are at critically low levels.
Residents have turned to social media in an attempt to get answers from Johannesburg Water, with some saying they had been without water for at least 24 hours. Others complained about little or no water for days on end.
Rand Water said it was implementing immediate Stage 2 water restrictions for several users, due to high water demand and strain on its reserves, which had resulted in the overall decline in reservoir storage from 52% to 38%.
“This has necessitated that Rand Water implements, with immediate effect, Stage 2 (30%) restrictions on several high consuming customer meters within each municipality to reduce the high current consumption,” it said in a statement issued on Monday.
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Both the Helen Joseph Hospital in Auckland Park and Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospital in Coronationville feed off the Hursthill reservoir.
The Gauteng Department of Health said both hospitals were experiencing low water pressure.
In a media release on Tuesday afternoon it said the facilities had boreholes, “but unfortunately this is not sufficient to keep up with the water demands at each facility”.
“Johannesburg Water is currently supplying water through mobile tankers and will continue delivery at an increased frequency and has isolated two towers to ensure supply to the facilities.
“Unfortunately, even with these measures, the water supply challenges persist and continue to negatively affect the smooth provision of healthcare services.”
Despite this, health services at the two hospitals were continuing.
The department said the water supply challenges had put healthcare workers under pressure as they try to mitigate against the current situation.
The department appealed to residents “to bear with us as we navigate through this challenge”, and also reiterated the call by Johannesburg Water for the public to use water sparingly.
A fire in a factory in Kempton Park, Pomona, raised concerns that emergency services would be unable to extinguish it effectively after reports that airport trucks had been called in to assist.
However, spokesperson William Ntladi allayed concerns and told News24 there was no water shortage at the scene.
He said the deployment of emergency services, including fire extinguishers from the OR Tambo International Airport, was to prevent further damage and disruption of services at the airport.
“There are no issues. There was lots of smoke that was emitted into the airport, and that impacted the airline that was landing and taking off from the airport, hence the fire department from the airport was here. This was also part of an agreement with the City of Ekurhuleni to contain the fire,” said Ntladi.
Ntladi said the fire was a grass fire and had spread to containers with flammable solutions that had not been identified. There were no death or injury reports.
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