Widespread water outages that hit East London yesterday were due to load-shedding. Residents from various suburbs and townships were affected by the outages including Beacon Bay, Gonubie, Amalinda, Cambridge, Selborne, Buffalo Flats, Braelyn, Southernwood, Berea, Haven Hills and Duncan Village.
According to the Buffalo City Metro (BCM), the water outage was due to an electrical fault on a transformer at the Mzonyana water treatment works in Wilsonia.
Metro spokesman Thandy Matebese said: “Due to the loadshedding, a small transformer blew up, causing challenges at the water plant.”
While water was restored to some areas after lunchtime yesterday, the metro said areas in high-lying areas were only expected to have water by late last night.
The Daily Dispatch was yesterday inundated with phone calls from residents wanting an update on the water situation, saying they could not get through to the metro’s water emergency line.
Oriander Volkers from Buffalo Flats said she tried calling BCM water department but there was no response.
“I tried three different numbers and they were all engaged,” siad Volkers.
The Dispatch also attempted to call the different phone numbers listed on the BCM’s website but there was no answer.
Businesses and residents complained they were severely affected by the outage.
The supervisor at Berea Carwash, William Kuntayi, said they lost more than R1000 due to the water outage.
“We had to turn away about 15 cars yesterday because there was no water,” said Kuntayi.
A fitness manager at the Body Culture health and wellness centre in Beacon Bay, Christine Smit, said they realised there was no water at 5.45am, just after opening time.
“This was very inconvenient for our business because most of our clients go to work straight from here and they need to shower after their training session,” said Smit.
Candice Wittstock from Hair Options Limited in Beacon Bay said she had to buy bottled water to rinse off a customer’s hair.
“I had already applied some chemicals to the client’s hair and when I got her under the tap only little drops of water were coming out.
“It was so embarrassing,” said Wittstock.
Onke Ngacu, a resident from Berea, said she had to spend R200 to get about 40 litres of water for household purposes.
Colette Ragafal from Amalinda said not having water was much worse than not having electricity.
“First it was load-shedding, now water-shedding. This is highly unacceptable. At least we can make a plan when we don’t have electricity but with water it is just inhumane and unhygienic,” said Ragafal.
Junior Dama from Refresh 2O water store in Berea said when they opened the store yesterday at 8am scores of people were queuing outside carrying containers to buy water.
“We also did not have water from our taps but luckily we had about 5000 litres of water stored in tanks as backup,” said Dama. — arethal@dispatch.co.za
City in chaos as water runs dry
According to the Buffalo City Metro (BCM), the water outage was due to an electrical fault on a transformer at the Mzonyana water treatment works in Wilsonia.
Metro spokesman Thandy Matebese said: “Due to the loadshedding, a small transformer blew up, causing challenges at the water plant.”
While water was restored to some areas after lunchtime yesterday, the metro said areas in high-lying areas were only expected to have water by late last night.
The Daily Dispatch was yesterday inundated with phone calls from residents wanting an update on the water situation, saying they could not get through to the metro’s water emergency line.
Oriander Volkers from Buffalo Flats said she tried calling BCM water department but there was no response.
“I tried three different numbers and they were all engaged,” siad Volkers.
The Dispatch also attempted to call the different phone numbers listed on the BCM’s website but there was no answer.
Businesses and residents complained they were severely affected by the outage.
The supervisor at Berea Carwash, William Kuntayi, said they lost more than R1000 due to the water outage.
“We had to turn away about 15 cars yesterday because there was no water,” said Kuntayi.
A fitness manager at the Body Culture health and wellness centre in Beacon Bay, Christine Smit, said they realised there was no water at 5.45am, just after opening time.
“This was very inconvenient for our business because most of our clients go to work straight from here and they need to shower after their training session,” said Smit.
Candice Wittstock from Hair Options Limited in Beacon Bay said she had to buy bottled water to rinse off a customer’s hair.
“I had already applied some chemicals to the client’s hair and when I got her under the tap only little drops of water were coming out.
“It was so embarrassing,” said Wittstock.
Onke Ngacu, a resident from Berea, said she had to spend R200 to get about 40 litres of water for household purposes.
Colette Ragafal from Amalinda said not having water was much worse than not having electricity.
“First it was load-shedding, now water-shedding. This is highly unacceptable. At least we can make a plan when we don’t have electricity but with water it is just inhumane and unhygienic,” said Ragafal.
Junior Dama from Refresh 2O water store in Berea said when they opened the store yesterday at 8am scores of people were queuing outside carrying containers to buy water.
“We also did not have water from our taps but luckily we had about 5000 litres of water stored in tanks as backup,” said Dama. — arethal@dispatch.co.za
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