City Power unable to give timeframe for restoration of power to parts of Joburg CBD after M1 fire

JOHANNESBURG - It's not yet clear when power will be restored in some parts of Johannesburg's inner city after an underground fire on the M1 highway.

It's understood electricity cables caught fire on Wednesday, causing a massive outage.

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City Power has found in its preliminary investigation that the blaze was due to suspected vandalism.

City Power said there’s no estimated time as to when power would be restored in Parktown, Braamfontein, and Newtown.

It said the underground fire affected two of its substations in Braamfontein and Fordsburg.

Spokesperson, Isaac Mangena, said that at this point, it was not clear how criminals had access to the underground cables.

"It seems like over time, these people have enough time on their hands to do this dirty work. Some of these slabs are difficult to lift. They are very heavy, and we have no idea how they accessed them."

Mangena said as a means to prevent the theft of these cables, concrete was poured over them, but this became a disadvantage for firefighters who were working to put out the blaze.