SA sewage spill after power cuts

By Peter Greste
BBC News, Johannesburg

More than 200m litres of raw sewage has been dumped into three rivers in South Africa because of power shortages.

The national electricity firm, Eskom, has introduced widespread load-shedding to cope with an unexpected surge in demand that it blames on bad weather.

The spillage happened when a cut unexpectedly shut down several sewage treatment works in South Africa's most densely populated province, Gauteng.

The local water firm says most of it is flowing into a popular recreation dam.

Dramatic

The estimated 200m litres of raw sewage poured into the Apies, Hennops and Pienaars rivers around Johannesburg and Pretoria.

Blackouts are not a usual occurrence in South Africa

Rand Water says they flow towards the Hartebeespoort Dam, popular as a weekend recreational spot.

Engineers at the Tshwane Metropolitan Council said it could take up to three weeks to correct the system.

The spillage is one of the most dramatic effects of a recent wave of power outages across the country.

Eskom has blamed it on a coincidence of headaches: unseasonably cold and rainy weather wetting its coal supplies and raising demand just as the company had begun its summer maintenance schedule.

And this on top of a generating system already at breaking point.

Another of South Africa's biggest minerals companies, Anglo Platinum, said two of its smelters had been badly affected by the outages.