Municipalities and electricity supplier Eskom are fighting an uphill battle to convince people in informal settlements not to build dwellings under high-voltage powerlines.
People living under the lines are in danger of being electrocuted should one of them snap and land on homes. Strong winds increase the chances of line breaks.
Maintenance teams who have to service the lines also have great difficulty in gaining access to them because of the high density of dwellings built below them.
Eskom and City of Cape Town officials have met with community leaders to emphasise the dangers of living underneath high-voltage lines, but sometimes this has been to no avail.
Eskom spokesperson Eone de Villiers said: "People who build houses or dwellings directly under power lines are not only breaking the law, but they are putting themselves, their families and their possessions at serious risk, as these lines are not insulated and carry power of a very high voltage.
"If a power line drops onto the roof, the roof becomes live as most of these houses are roofed with corrugated iron," De Villiers said. She again appealed to the public to stop building houses or dwellings underneath power lines.
Natural events such as lightning increased the risk. Because of storms, wind and general fault conditions the chances of lines snapping are increased.
"The risk of being injured is increased if power lines or conductors are damaged or their condition has deteriorated over time. There are also other possible disasters that could occur such as veld fires or lightning strikes that can cause the lines to drop," said De Villiers.
Marius van Rensburg, Eskom Field Services Manager, said people living under powerlines at times caused unnecessary power cuts.
"To take precautions and prevent possible electrocution of people, Eskom (sometimes has) to switch off the Auto Reclose (ARC) function of some power lines within the Eskom servitude," he said.
"Such outages could take up to two hours as a line patrol must be done on the line before an attempt can be made to re-energise these power lines. This means outages take much longer than expected and exposure to the dangers of contact is so much greater."
Relocating the illegal occupants remained the responsibility of the landowner, which in many cases was the local municipality. Van Rensburg said continuous contact was maintained with all municipalities to make them aware of the dangers to people living under powerlines.
Brian Jones, an engineer in the City of Cape Town electricity department said they were aware of the risks.
"We have had an education campaign comprising workshops in the area just to educate the people. The big challenge is, once the area is cleared how do you keep it clear (from invasion)?
"One strategy is to put it into other use, such as turning it into playing fields, or use it for agriculture. But this remains a big challenge because of the constant migration of people to Cape Town." - Cape Argus
No comments:
Post a Comment