Joburg CBD power outage: City Power begins staged repairs after Central Substation fire
City Power urged people to stay away from the site.
On Monday, City Power in Johannesburg began repairing a power outage in the CBD after a fire at the Central Substation cut electricity to Marshalltown and parts of the city. The cause of the outage remains unclear, with City Power stating that teams needed to complete cleaning, checks, and restoration work before estimating when power would be restored.
Acting CEO Charles Tlouane led a team on-site to devise a repair plan, explaining that repairs would be carried out in stages. This was due to the need to check and confirm each section of the network was safe before returning it to service. The fire, which occurred on Saturday, damaged the underground network, and temperatures inside the affected area remained too high for teams to work safely until they could be cooled.
City Power discovered evidence of cable theft at the scene, including an axe, a jigsaw, and other tools commonly used in such crimes, found beneath the damaged equipment. Police secured the scene after teams left, and a suspect, badly burned, remained in the hospital under police guard. The utility suggested that the explosion and fire may have been caused by the tampering, urging the public to stay away from the substation for safety reasons and not to speak to technicians on site.
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