Explosion reported at Glen Marais substation cuts power across Kempton Park
EIR-1002Other entries that name Kempton
Provisional entry. Confirmed: an explosion at a substation in Glen Marais, Kempton Park cut power to numerous suburbs on 8 June 2019 and smoke prevented technicians entering. Not yet known: the cause, the equipment involved, any injuries and how long the outage lasted. Next update: 19 September 2026.
An explosion was reported at a substation in Glen Marais, Kempton Park, South Africa, at about 4am on a Saturday, cutting electricity to large parts of the area. Suburbs reported without power included Van Riebeeck Park, Norkem Park, parts of Birchleigh, Glen Marais, Aston Manor, Nimrod Park, Kempton Park extensions 2 and 3, and parts of Bredell and Pomona. By just before 10am, teams had still not been able to enter the substation to establish what damage the explosion had caused because there was still too much smoke inside. A ward councillor said technicians intended to restore supply to Van Riebeeck Park, Birchleigh and Norkem Park first once access was possible. Injuries, cause and the eventual restoration time are not reported in the available account.
Not reported.
- Smoke persisting inside a substation enclosure can prevent entry and delay both damage assessment and restoration, so ventilation and safe-entry arrangements matter to outage duration.
- A single substation failure can remove supply from many residential areas at once, which is a case for network redundancy and switching alternatives.
- Early public communication on restoration priorities helps manage community expectations during long outages.
Published 2026-09-17. Written from public reporting. Descriptive, not investigative. See the data accuracy disclaimer.