Explosion and building collapse at Elsburg substation cut power in Germiston
Oct 2018Published 22 Oct 2026Responsible editor: Chief Editor
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What happened
At about 7am on Tuesday 16 October 2018, businesses near the Elsburg Substation on Ostend Road, Germiston, heard a loud bang, and several suburbs were plunged into darkness. The Germiston City News reported that the outage was caused by an explosion and a building collapse at the substation. Affected areas included Delville, Collin Wade, the Germiston South industrial area, industrial areas fed from Enterprise, and parts of Hazeldene, Elsburg and the Germiston CBD.
The metro's chief area engineer said the time of the explosion and its cause were not yet known and that an investigation was under way. Calls were being made to assess whether a portable substation could be brought to the site to restore power temporarily while repairs were carried out. The metro estimated that power would be restored by 9am the following day.
Contributing factors
Not reported. The source states that the cause was still under investigation. The metro's chief area engineer said that getting the relevant departments together to make decisions was a setback in restoring power and made a turnaround time difficult to determine.
Lessons learned
- After an explosion at electrical plant, assess the structural integrity of adjacent buildings before work begins, because a collapse can extend both the outage and the hazard to people.
- Agree in advance how a portable or temporary substation will be deployed and how decisions will be made across departments, so that restoration is not delayed while approvals are gathered.
- Give affected customers early, updated information on restoration timelines and the basis for each estimate, and revise it as facts become known.
More lessons on structural integrity and turbines, outages, backup supply and restoration, from every incident on the register.
Source
Published 2026-10-22. Written from public reporting. Descriptive, not investigative. See the data accuracy disclaimer.
