Parts of Grahamstown were without power on Wednesday night 19 February and again on Thursday, after a fault at one of the city's major electrical substations.
Parts of Grahamstown were without power on Wednesday night 19 February and again on Thursday, after a fault at one of the city's major electrical substations.
The more recent power cuts were the result of storm damage, according to Rhodes University's Executive Director of Infrastructure, Operations and Finance, Dr Iain L’Ange.
L'Ange said in a statement posted on Thursday morning: "The high wind during last night's storm caused the collapse of a 66 000 volt, oil circuit breaker at the city's summit substation".
Power had returned to most areas affected by 8am.
The supply to the Rhodes campus was restored by 10.30am.
Meanwhile, a number of lectures at Rhodes University were cancelled on Tuesday 18 February, the second day of the university term, after the campus lost power for five hours.
Power was restored to the Rhodes campus around 4pm on Tuesday.
"The power outage that we experienced on parts of campus … was caused by a digger [that is part of the project to lay a]water pipeline from the Waainek [water treatment works]to the upper campus," he explained in an interview on Tuesday.
"But this is a municipal project. It is the municipality that is putting in the pipeline and one of their backactors, or diggers, accidentally dug up three powerlines in the ground."
Tuesday's outage was caused by contractors accidentally severing three electrical cables.
