Bree Street blast: Joburg inner city residents without power due to risk

Three power substations — Bree, Braamfontein and John Ware — were offline after Wednesday's blast and will remain so until the area is declared safe.

“Our teams will not respond to outage calls in the CBD until the area has been declared safe to access and work,” City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said.

Preliminary assessments did not show any damage to the substations by the explosion at about 5.30pm as power in some areas was still on, he said on Wednesday night.

“However, the substations were load-shed at 6pm until 8pm and our teams decided we should not switch them on for fear it might ignite with reports of [a] suspected gas leak in the vicinity.”

Special attention is being given to the Bree substation, Mangena said, as it is close to the area worst affected by the blast.

There is concern that its structural integrity may have been affected. “Our team of engineers and technicians are on site doing assessments and tests on the network.”

One City Power employee was injured during the explosion while on her way to work. She is receiving treatment in hospital.

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