Tshwane residents resort to opening fire hydrants amid water supply issues
Residents in parts of Tshwane say they have had to resort to opening fire hydrants for access to water.
The residents of Wierdapark say they have been without water for the past two days.
The city said over the weekend that Rand Water had warned it that its system is struggling to recover after a series of power failures.
Load shedding and several power outages have caused tripping, reducing the volume of water in the metro.
Wierdapark Residents Association interim chairperson Liza Vorster says the city cannot blame residents’ consumption for the lack of water supply.
“Residents are outraged by the current situation of no water in Wierdapark. The Bakenkop Reservoir feeding Wierdapark and neighbouring suburbs is completely empty. It indirectly implies that residents are to be blamed for over usage of water resources in Tshwane; however this is not the complete truth.
“Residents of Olievenhoutbosch stormed to Monavoni and Mnandi yesterday and opened fire hydrants to get water for usage in the community. This is a desperate situation in the City of Tshwane currently.”
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Vorster says a permanent solution to the water leakages in the area would go a long way to solving the crisis.
“The amount of water leaks throughout Centurion, and especially in older areas like Wierdapark popping up everywhere, is a major contributing factor in the over usage of water resources in Tshwane.
“Some of these water leaks will remain unattended for days on end with water gushing out of these leaks and pumping thousands of litres of water to waste down our streets.”
City of Tshwane spokesperson Lindela Mashigo says water outages continued on Monday in Centurion, with water tankers deployed to affected areas.
“The city has observed an improvement in most of the reservoirs that were affected over the weekend, such as the Garsfontein and Laudium reservoirs that were empty but have now recovered at 54% and 90%, respectively.
“There are, however, new reservoirs and areas that are affected since yesterday, such as the Mooikloof, Klapperkop, Mnandi and Lotus Gardens reservoirs that are either at critically low levels or empty”.
“The city’s technical team is engaging with Rand Water for intervention to restore water supply to all affected areas”.
