Though the timeline has shifted earlier to Thursday for the restoration of power across Nelson Mandela Bay, pylons further along the same line as those that collapsed show worrying signs of wear and tear.
The outage was caused by the collapse of two 132kV overhead pylons along the Bethelsdorp-Greenbushes corridor on Thursday afternoon.
Officials have linked the incident to the heavy winds on the day and the vandalism of infrastructure, including the theft of bolts.
Large areas were plunged into darkness, with the disruption also affecting several water pump stations and reservoirs, resulting in taps going dry.
All six replacement monopoles have since been installed, with line stringing having been completed for five of them.
“Unfortunately, deteriorating weather conditions, including lightning and strong winds, have made it unsafe for teams to continue work at this stage,” mayor Babalwa Lobishe said on Monday.
“For the safety of our workers and residents, operations have been temporarily paused and will resume early tomorrow morning, weather permitting.”
The municipality said the upgrades would eventually strengthen the network, improve reliability and reduce the risk of future outages.
Meanwhile, it appeared that bolts had been stolen from certain other pylons on the line, which were later welded with replacement brackets.
Rust could be seen on these pylons.
Municipal spokesperson Sithembiso Soyaya said the pylons were more than 30 years old and normal wear and tear would be evident.
“The pylons are old and vulnerable to vandalism and the harsh weather conditions.”
He said the municipality was exploring monopoles instead of pylons.
“It’s important to note that at the time pylons were installed, current weather conditions and patterns were not considered or present.”
On Monday, Lobishe and electricity and energy political head Ziyanda Mnqokoyi visited the site.
Initial reports suggested repairs would take 14 days, but the timeline has since shifted to Thursday.
Lobishe is impressed by the work done so far.
“All six monopoles are up, replacing the towers that have fallen,” she said.
It was now just a matter of completing the installation of the line so that testing could take place, she said.
“We are looking at Wednesday or Thursday.
“The causal factors were vandalism and the gale-force winds that pushed the towers down.
“We suspect a third hand in the process, and we are going to open a case so that an investigation can ensue. “
Lobishe said rust did not cause the collapse of the towers, and signs of tampering had been evident.
In August 2024, four 132kV high-voltage transmission towers on the Summerstrand line collapsed due to gale-force winds.
The incident was caused by rust and corrosion.
Power was restored after more than a week.
Rust and corrosion on a transmission tower were again behind a widespread outage in May 2025.
“We have taken a stance of this site being safeguarded, but I think [installing] the monopoles is also taking precautionary measures because they are not prone to vandalism as per the towers, so it would really need a technically sound person to tamper with the lines,” Lobishe said.
“Consistent maintenance and putting sensors on our sites is what we are considering because we are spending millions on guarding the substations.”
Electricity and energy acting executive director Bernhardt Lamour said parts of the towers that collapsed had been stolen and that rust on the replacement braces was due to a lack of time to galvanise them.
He assured residents and businesses that this was only surface rust and did not cause the collapse of the towers.
“It didn’t break on the rusted pieces,” he said.
“There is evidence that bolts were removed.”
Lamour said the metro spent millions on security to protect substations from theft and vandalism, but that it was not possible to guard every pylon.
“It’s going to cost us too much money to have security at each pylon.
“We do a drive-through inspection on the pylons, that’s all we can do.”
He said all pylons from the Chatty substation to Summerstrand needed to be replaced.
“We had a budget [for this financial year], but it is depleted.
“The budget was about R30m, and that’s all spent on the Summerstrand line, so we need more budget to replace all these pylons, and there are quite a lot.”
Eskom maintenance and operations zone manager for the city, Aron Rondganger, said the utility was assisting the metro with engineering support and fixing damages caused by vandals.
“You can see that the metro has actually done some extensive work previously, trying to fix some of the towers.
“Some of the towers that have fallen, you can see it is not actually significant rust.
“The towers themselves are actually very healthy, and you will see there is no rust, but the tower members the metro tried to fix a few years ago, and those are the ones that are showing some surface rust.
“But what we can see is that the cause of the fault was significant gusty winds.”
According to the metro’s mid-year report for the 2025/2026 financial year, it failed to reach its maintenance target.
The report covers July 1 to December 31.
The city fell short of its 95% planned-maintenance target, achieving only 75%.
In total, 714 maintenance activities were completed, well below the target of 956.
Of a 98% target, the metro reached 96% of unplanned outages, which were restored within industry timeframes.
Between July 1 and December 31, the Bay experienced 609 unplanned outages, and of those, 584 were restored within 24 hours.
“The reported underperformance is attributed to the rural electricity network being exposed to harsh weather conditions and wildlife, particularly in areas near the West Depot,” the report says.
“These factors resulted in a high number of cable faults.
“In addition, incidents of theft and vandalism further contributed to the underperformance.”
Meanwhile, Lobishe said she was looking forward to switching the lights back on by Thursday.
“It is quite a frustration. We want to apologise for the inconvenience experienced by our residents and businesses.”
