The Durban Council elaborated on the reason for the influx of tourists to the city as well as the closure of the beaches at a press conference at City Hall yesterday.
The manager of the council, Mr. Musa Mbhele, who started by apologizing for the damage caused to the residents of Durban, businessmen, commuters as well as tourists, said that the flow of sewage that continues to be seen on Margaret Mncadi Avenue was caused by a technical failure at the Mahatma Gandhi Pump Station.
He said that the cause of the technical failure of this pump was caused by the failure of its electrical components among others.
“This is caused by waste and other things that should not enter this generator, which ended up destroying the pumps,” said Mbhele.
He said that since the problem occurred, their teams, experts and engineers are working hard to restore the situation to normal to ensure that the generator is fully operational as usual.
He said that one of the reasons why this problem has not been solved immediately is that they were busy fixing the problems that had already been found, and then others surfaced.
He said at that time the generator was already overloaded, two pumps were working, instead of four.
“According to its structure, the operation of one pump is not enough because it cannot withstand the large volume of sewage that is entering it. That is why the municipality hastened the plan to install another one on May 10 this year,” said Mbhele, who said that while they were busy with that work, the other one failed again soon after.
He said this led to the closure of all the beaches affected by the problem.
“These beaches include Bay of Plenty, North Beach and Battery Beach. This step has been taken to protect the public while the situation is being repaired,” said Mbhele.
He said that the occurrence of the incident highlighted the need for better infrastructure development at the Mahatma Gandhi Pump Station.
“The council is working on plans to fix this by improving the operation of the generator, working for a long time from now to ensure that there are less chances of this type of incident happening again in the future,” he said.