- The Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality has deployed water trucks to communities affected by disruptions to water supply.
- The disruptions were because of low water levels at its reservoirs.
- The municipality said this due to load shedding because enough water could not pump into the reservoirs, especially during peak hours.
The Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality deployed water trucks to areas experiencing outages and disruptions on Wednesday.
It said disruptions were caused by storage lost at some of its reservoirs in Chelsea, KwaNobuhle, and Reservoir Hills.
This means water levels are low at reservoirs that supply water in their respective communities.
The municipality said load shedding could cause this.
"We use the reservoirs to store water that we will distribute to communities of consumers. There is a high extraction from those reservoirs when it's peak or high consumption time.
"In some instances, when there is load shedding, we can't pump water into those reservoirs, and yet the extraction is high and continuing. We end up losing water in the reservoir."
Affected areas include:
Last week, News24 reported the Impofu Dam, which was constructed in 1983, was at its lowest water levels.
Mayor Retief Odendaal expressed concern about the low water levels and urged residents to reduce consumption.
"The pumps on the barge near the intake tower will soon reach the riverbed and will need to be moved. The drought situation is real, and we need everyone to take it seriously and reduce their water consumption."
He added the municipality struggled to meet its daily water demand of 286 megalitres a day which caused water shortages.
Dam water levels in Kouga, Churchill, Impofu, Loerie and Groendal dams are at 14.90%.