A major unplanned electricity fault has plunged large parts of Cape Town’s northern and western suburbs into darkness this evening, affecting both City of Cape Town and Eskom customers simultaneously across a vast geographic area.

What happened

The blackout – which struck on the evening of Monday 28 September – points to a significant high-voltage transmission line trip or a primary substation failure, rather than routine maintenance or load shedding, which is not currently active. The fact that both municipal and Eskom-supplied customers lost power at the same time across an extensive area suggests the fault lies upstream on the transmission network.

Community reporting platform EskomSePush (ESP) confirmed the scale of the event, logging a dramatic surge of 3 677 power-off reports in a single hour (around 18:00 SAST). In the 24 hours leading up to the outage, the platform recorded nearly 3 900 power-off reports citywide – a figure that spiked sharply as the fault hit.

An ESP community alert described the event as “a very large Eskom power outage affecting Greater Table View and large surrounds in Parklands,” with the cause listed as unknown. Additional reports confirmed power off in Parklands, extending to Blouberg.

Areas affected

The outage spans a broad corridor across the city’s northern and western suburbs:

Western suburbs: Parklands, Sandown, Big Bay, Greater Table View and Blouberg.

Northern suburbs: Durbanville, Edgemead, Plattekloof, Burgundy Estate, Parow South, Kraaifontein, and Goodwood.

ESP’s active-area data corroborates the scope, listing Parklands, Table View, Kraaifontein, Edgemead, Richwood, and West Beach among the areas with significant outage activity. The OurPower outage tracker similarly showed high report counts from Kraaifontein (341 reports), Durbanville (128), Parklands (62), Table View (54), and Bloubergstrand (40).

Response underway

Technical teams are investigating the root cause and working to isolate the fault so power can be routed back to the affected networks. Given the scale of the outage, officials have cautioned that restoration will take time.

What residents should do

• Log the fault: Use the City of Cape Town Alerts page or the City’s official Facebook page to log your outage and obtain a reference number.
• SMS/WhatsApp: City of Cape Town customers can SMS their account and fault details to 31220 or use the electricity WhatsApp line at 060 018 1505.
• Eskom customers: Use the MyEskom Customer App to log a localised fault.
• Protect appliances: Disconnect sensitive electronics and appliances at the wall to guard against power surges when the grid is re-energised.
• Keep channels clear: Community groups have asked residents to avoid flooding chats with individual street-level confirmations, as the outage is confirmed across the area. Keeping messaging clear helps critical updates reach everyone faster