A strong petroleum smell greeted Parklands and Table View residents
on Thursday morning last week – the smell was clearly discernible as far as
Parklands Main Road.
As in many previous such incidents, residents wasted very
little time trying to figure out the cause of the smell.
One resident raised her concerns on the Table View
Neighbours New Facebook page, saying: “This morning around 05:00 and for a few
hours, there was a terrible petroleum smell. I noticed again this evening it is
back, so much so that my nose is burning inside. I am not new to the area, I
have been here since 1991 … is there some problem going on at the refinery?”
One resident said they saw big clouds of black smoke coming
from the refinery early that morning, while another said the smell was “really
pungent”.
“There was a weird gassy smell outside this morning around
01:30”, another resident wrote. Another responded, saying: “Yes it seems that
funny things happen under the cover of darkness”.
Earlier in the day, a user commented that there had been a
loss of electrical power to the refinery. This was confirmed by Chevron’s
public affairs advisor, Darren Rix.
He told TygerBurger that the Cape Town refinery can confirm
that a total power supply outage to the refinery and surrounds was experienced
on Thursday 4 October. The outage was as a result of the external power supply
being interrupted, he said.
“The refinery was safely shut down, which resulted in some
visible emissions,” Rix said. He said the refinery was currently in the process
of starting up.
“This process may take several days and result in some
intermittent visible emissions and noise. We will do our best to mitigate these
potential impacts,” he responded on Friday.
What is your opinion on this article? Let us know at
briewe@tygerburger.co.za
