Africa-Press – South-Africa. The eThekwini Municipality says teams are working hard to restore power and water to areas severely affected by heavy downpours that have lashed parts of KwaZulu-Natal.
In a statement on Wednesday, the municipality said teams have been busy restoring electricity to many areas and started clearing roads of mud and debris.
“Many areas are still inaccessible for repairs to be done. In addition, staff have also suffered personal tragedies in the disaster or are unable to reach their workplaces because of road conditions,” it added.
The municipality urged residents to be patient as there would be delays in restoring services due to the extensive damage to infrastructure.
Several areas are without water and the municipality has asked residents to conserve it.
“Umgeni Water has notified the City that two of the mainline feeder aqueducts are broken and therefore they are not supplying water to the Durban Heights reservoir. This will impact the supply of water to many areas in eThekwini.”
It said it had dispatched tankers to supply water to residents in the interim.
On Wednesday, Eskom said it would not be implementing load shedding in the municipality.
Power has been restored to most parts of the city and only three substations remain offline because of extensive damage.
KZN floods: ‘We didn’t expect that much rain,’ says weather service
“In addition, more contactors have been brought onboard to support the repair effort. The electricity call centres are also experiencing a high volume of calls. The public is urged to use alternative contact details to report any outages,” the municipality said.
Meanwhile, President Cyril Ramaphosa visited KZN on Wednesday following the devastating floods that have caused massive destruction in the province.
Ramaphosa described the devastating floods as a “catastrophe of enormous proportions” and promised to act with haste to assist affected communities.
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