Water supply to homes in over 160 Johannesburg suburbs was affected by unplanned maintenance in October and November 2024, according to Joburg Water’s official updates.

In those two months, the utility reported 41 unplanned incidents – double the number of planned repairs over the same period. Unplanned maintenance refers to repairs carried out in response to infrastructure failures such as burst pipes.

Some of the maintenance work was quick, taking less than a day. But some parts of Soweto had two weeks of ‘water supply disruption’ because of an unplanned structural investigation of the Jabulani reservoir.

Other parts of the city were hit with multiple incidents which resulted in low water pressure to no water. The North Riding area had five to six unplanned repairs mainly because of pipe bursts at the Honeydew tower, as did the Alexandra Lombardy area.