Joburg CBD explosion to be declared a state of disaster

The Joburg CBD explosion that happened last week will be declared a state of disaster. 

City manager, Floyd Brink, announced on Wednesday during a briefing in Braamfontein that the process of compiling a report to the Provincial Disaster Management Centre (PMDC) through the Disaster Management Centre to commence with the necessary legislated processes was underway. 

Brink said the declaration of the disaster is critical in order to allow them to assess the impact of the explosion on infrastructure and to cost the rehabilitation work required.  

He said: “We have mandated the Disaster Management Centre to commence with the processes and to finalise a report for submission to the PDMC within the next seven days.” 

On the city’s recovery, Brink explained that on Tuesday evening, Johannesburg Water concluded repair work to two broken sewer connections at Bree, Loveday and Von Brandis streets.  

“This has enabled the reconnection of sewer services to the area and as of today, we are confident all residents in the area should be reconnected and have access to regular sewer services. The damaged water main pipe along Bree and Joubert streets has been repaired and water restored to the affected block. The damaged water main pipe on Bree and Loveday streets was repaired but experienced leaks due to alignment issues.” 

“Our teams from Johannesburg Water are on site and we expect the repair work to be completed this afternoon. It has been of paramount importance to us to restore services to residents in the area as a matter of urgency and we are pleased to have achieved this milestone. We wish to thank the residents of the area for their patience and consideration, and we will continue to monitor the area for any disruptions that may occur because of the work still to be undertaken.” 

On the cause of the explosion, Brink indicated that investigations were still inconclusive on what may have ignited the gas or the source of the gas in the underground tunnels.  

“We continue to receive regular updates from the experts on site and are concurrently pushing to restore services and to prepare for the rehabilitation work of the road and underground tunnels. We are now beginning our planning for the rehabilitation and repair work of the road surface and underground service tunnels in Lilian Ngoyi Street. It is evident to us that in rehabilitating the road surface and underground tunnels, we will have to implement new standards of how we manage and lay out underground service lines and connections.”