City-wide power outage in Durban

Vast swathes of the eThekwini municipality are without power as part of a city-wide blackout on Wednesday.

eThekwini municipality spokesperson Gugu Sisilana said technicians were still investigating the cause of the outage‚ which downed lines from Tongaat to Amanzimtoti.

“They are investigating the cause of the power failure and we are still waiting for the data regarding which areas have been affected‚” she said.

The municipality’s electricity fault hotline crashed after it was flooded with calls in the wake of the major power outage.

“The call centre is flooded with calls and the phones are ringing off the hook. We are trying to reach them as well‚” Sisilana said.

She would not be drawn to comment on a viral Whatsapp message that a substation in Mariannhill had “blown up” resulting in the city-wide outage.