Durban - The King Cetshwayo District Municipality in northern KwaZulu-Natal has apologised to Eshowe residents after their water supply was disrupted.
The municipality was working to fix the problem and said the most affected areas included Mpushini, Sunnydale and Eshowe CBD.
It said there was a water supply interruption due to raw water contamination from the eHlazi and Ruthledge dams, the primary sources of water supply to the Eshowe water purification plant.
Mayor Thami Ntuli said the water supply had been contaminated with oil or chemicals.
He said the municipality had supplied water tankers to the affected areas and work was being carried out to ensure that once restored the tap water was safe to consume.
“We want to ensure that water is supplied back to the communities again,'' he said.
The municipality has suspended all operations at the Eshowe water purification plant until further notice.
“The technical services team is attending to the raw water contamination challenges,'' the mayor said.
Sipho Dlamini, a resident from Sunnydale, said that residents were taken aback by the water outage.
“When we woke up with no water we were disturbed as it was not anticipated but we are happy that the municipality has quickly responded to these issues and we hope our taps will have running water soon,'' he said.