Save power, pleads Eskom

Eskom has appealed to East Coasters to do whatever they can to conserve power during the cold snap - or the province will be faced with more electricity outages.

Eskom's Hillary Joffe says they were forced to loadshed in parts of eThekwini and KwaDukuza earlier today because five of the key transmission lines to KZN have been downed by the snow and rain.

Joffe says it's virtually impossible to tell whether they will have to deliberately cut power again.

"We do really apologise, but this is the kind of thing which is beyond our control. When the bad weather knocks lines out like that - very suddenly - as it did in the very early hours of this morning, it's very hard to tell people in advance. We have to take action as fast as we can, but we certainly will work hard to communicate to the extent that we can; but we can't always promise to tell you in advance because the weather doesn't always tell us in advance what it's going to do."

Joffe's encouraged East Coasters to call Eskom's faults numbers as soon as they experience outages.

You can report faults to share-call number 08600 37566 or through SMS on 084 655 5778, 082 941 3707 and 083 647 1951.

- EAST COAST RADIO