After an 11-day outage, Eskom has confirmed that electricity supply has been restored to some areas in Mahikeng, North West. The outage occurred after the Mimosa substation that supplies various areas exploded, cutting off all its supply. Residents and businesses in and around the city were left without power for almost two weeks, causing adverse effects on some community members and businesses who had to borrow money to survive the blackout.
The outage was caused by an explosion at the Mimosa substation, which left the entire supply cut off. As a result, businesses and residents were adversely affected, with some having to borrow money to survive.
According to Mahikeng ward councilor Arista Annadale, the explosion happened just after load shedding, and the aged infrastructure, combined with vandalism of some of the mini substations, caused the outage. Eskom has been aware of these issues for some time now.
While the power has been restored to some areas, challenges remain for those who are still without electricity. The incident in Mahikeng serves as a reminder of the importance of maintaining and upgrading infrastructure to prevent future outages.