On 20 December 2021, a fire on the underside of a bridge structure caused severe damage and subsequent failure of the 132kV High Voltage (HV) cables from the City of Cape Town’s Montagu Gardens Switching Station to the City’s Foreshore Switching Station and Eskom’s Tafelbaai High Voltage Substation to the Foreshore Switching Station. The cables run though the secured enclosed section of the bridge. All supply was restored to the affected areas on 21 December 2021.

​​​​​The City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Energy, Councillor Beverley van Reenen, earlier this week on 9 February 2022, visited the cable bridge across the Swart River in Paarden Eiland to assess ongoing repair work to electricity infrastructure.

‘Much work has already been completed. This includes HV cable being installed across the canal and rerouted to a new joint bay, among others.

‘I am so pleased to see for myself that site works are progressing well and to hear that we are on target to complete these repairs. I was also glad to hear about the measures which are being put in place to ensure the repair work is being completed in a way that will avoid a potential, similar outage in future. For added security and to mitigate risk, the cable routes of those circuits now feeding the CBD will be closely monitored and patrolled on a daily basis until the restoration work is complete and the risk returns to normal.
 
‘Unfortunately, vandalism of electricity infrastructure is outside of the City‘s control and remains a challenge. We appeal to residents to assist us by reporting any suspicious activities near electricity infrastructure to both the South African Police Service (SAPS) and the City so that we can bring an end to infrastructure vandalism.
 
‘Thank you to the Eskom and City teams, which worked non-stop to restore electricity to the area and continue to work to repair this infrastructure. We also thank our residents for their patience and understanding during the outage,’ said Councillor van Reenen.