Dozens of suburbs, hospitals and wastewater works hit as power outages spread across Joburg

Staff Reporter

Widespread electricity outages in Johannesburg on Wednesday have affected hospitals, a police station, a wastewater treatment plant and dozens of suburbs, with City Power warning that its distribution network was under severe pressure.

Shortly before 10:30am, an independent live tracker compiling City Power’s public notifications listed 31 active incidents affecting 51 Johannesburg suburbs.

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The number was changing as City Power announced restorations and recorded new faults, but the notices showed failures stretching from Roodepoort and Randburg in the west to Alexandra and Sandringham in the north-east, and from the inner city to Lenasia and Mulbarton in the south.

“Warning: The power system is constrained. We urge customers to reduce their electricity consumption to prevent overloading the system,” City Power said in an Alexandra Service Delivery Centre update.

The centre was dealing with 245 open calls,