Johannesburg power outages causes flight delays

The OR Tambo International Airport, outside Johannesburg, was experiencing flight delays on Thursday due to a power outage, it said.

"While essential services operated on back-up power, a backlog is being experienced, as some services had to be facilitated manually," said spokeswoman Unathi Batyashe-Fillis in a statement.

Travellers were asked to be patient, to co-operate with officials, and to call their airlines for flight information.

Eskom earlier announced power cuts were scheduled to last from 9am to 10pm across the country due to seven days of heavy rain leaving coal stocks wet.

Consumers were urged to switch off all non-essential appliances.

Power cuts temporary setback: Cabinet

The wave of power cuts being experienced throughout the country is a temporary setback, Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa said on Thursday.

Briefing journalists at Parliament on behalf of Cabinet, Molewa said Eskom had assured government there was adequate energy in the electricity grid.

"It is as temporary as temporary can be. Once we get back to normality of drier weather this problem will be over," Molewa said.

Eskom said the power cuts were caused by heavy rainfall in Mpumalanga which had left the power utility's coal stocks wet.

Molewa said a request would be made to the ministers of energy and public enterprises to engage Eskom.

"We will have to take this back... the repeated issue of wet weather whether there can be or should be some mechanism implemented to really be able to curb the problems and to mitigate even before we are destabilised by the wet weather."

Molewa said there was no reason for alarm.

"We do not believe we have a crisis in energy at this present time. Eskom did indicate that we do have enough and adequate energy in the grid," she said.

"It is a question of utilisation, that's why Cabinet... said we are making a call to all South Africans to ensure we use energy efficiently."

Government had not received any reports that the economy had been affected by the power cuts.

"For now we haven't received any information that says there's any negative impact that will be realised," Molewa said.

Cabinet could not commit to when the power cuts would end.

"We expect the rains will subside and as the rain subsides obviously we'll be back to normal. That's the timeline we're more or less expecting to have a return to normality," Molewa said.

For load shedding schedule click here