While eThekwini Municipality confirmed that repairs to the Northern Aqueduct had been completed on Wednesday, 22 July, and that planned maintenance at the Durban Heights Water Treatment Works was completed on Saturday, 25 July, residents say the latest disruptions have exposed deeper concerns around ageing infrastructure, communication and the resilience of the city’s water network.
Across Durban North and uMhlanga, intermittent outages and low water pressure have become an unsettling reality, disrupting households, placing businesses under pressure and forcing communities to make alternative arrangements for a service they rely on daily.
For residents, the impact extends far beyond inconvenience. Dry taps disrupt cooking, cleaning, bathing and basic hygiene, while families are left scrambling to store water, purchase bottled supplies or rely on tankers without knowing when normal supply will resume.
Residents Richard Lucien (77) and his wife, Pat (72), have lived in Durban North for 51 years and say the ongoing water outages are the worst they have experienced.
“We have lived in our home for 51 years and have never experienced water outages this bad, not even during the devastating floods of 1987. We have now been without water for six days. At our age, with Richard in a wheelchair and both of us in poor health, collecting water is not easy. Everyday tasks like cooking, bathing, flushing toilets and taking medication have become a struggle. We understand that problems can occur, but water is a basic human necessity, and we urge the municipality to treat this crisis with the urgency it deserves,” they said.
Sam Reddy, chairperson of the Glen Hills and Glen Anil Ratepayers Association, said the latest outages had highlighted deeper challenges within eThekwini’s water network.
“This is no longer simply about a planned shutdown. It has exposed an ageing infrastructure system that has been under increasing pressure for some time. Residents have shared their frustration with me, not only because of the prolonged water outages, but also because of the uncertainty surrounding restoration times and the lack of clear communication.
Many don’t understand why one street has water while another doesn’t, or why supply returns intermittently. Residents appreciate that maintaining a water network of this size is a complex engineering task, but they also expect a clear long-term strategy to reduce water losses, repair leaks more efficiently, invest in ageing infrastructure and improve communication,” he said.
DA Ward 36 councillor Heinz de Boer said the challenges facing northern areas reflected a much larger infrastructure crisis that had been developing over several months.
“The water situation since November 2025 has been nothing short of catastrophic. We are sitting with, in the northern area, close to 8 000 to 10 000 unresolved leaks and bursts, while at last count we have fewer than 30 municipal plumbers able to attend to these issues. Our water losses are also sitting at around 65%, which equates to billions of rand being lost through leaks and bursts — money that could be invested into replacing ageing infrastructure and upgrading our water network,” he said.
He added that the recent failures affecting the Northern Aqueduct, reservoirs and supply network had left some residents without water for days.
“The past week, following the burst on the Northern Aqueduct, another burst on uMhlanga Rocks Drive and reservoirs running empty, has been an absolute disaster. The sheer scale of the misery residents experienced is hard to describe. In some cases, people went from Monday and Tuesday through to Saturday and Sunday without water.
This highlights the urgent need for major infrastructure changes and a complete rethink of how the Water and Sanitation Department operates because residents cannot continue living with an unreliable water supply.”
Meanwhile, the uMhlanga Ratepayers and Residents Association (URRA) has described the situation as critical, saying residents across Durban North and uMhlanga have endured ongoing outages and low water pressure with limited communication from eThekwini Water.
URRA chairperson Terri MacLarty said the situation had been compounded by development without adequate supporting infrastructure.
“The situation has been made worse by continual development without sustainable supporting infrastructure, which is a serious lapse in responsibility on the part of the municipality. The damage to a major water pipe on Herrwood Drive has further intensified pressure on surrounding communities that were already struggling with unreliable supply.
For households, this means relying on tankers, buying bottled water and facing growing concerns around hygiene, particularly for schools and elderly residents.”
In response, eThekwini Municipality said repair work on the Northern Aqueduct had been completed.
In a public notice issued on Wednesday, 22 July, the municipality stated: “The eThekwini Municipality is pleased to advise residents and businesses that repair work on the Northern Aqueduct has been completed. Following the completion of repairs, technical teams have commenced the process of charging the mains to gradually restore the system.”
The municipality explained that pipelines needed to be carefully refilled and pressurised before normal operations could resume.
In a further update issued on Saturday, 25 July, the municipality confirmed that planned maintenance at the Durban Heights Water Treatment Works had been completed.
It stated: “uMngeni-uThukela Water (UUW) has confirmed that the plant has returned to full production following the completion of all scheduled maintenance activities.”
The municipality added that restoration would happen progressively, noting: “Restoration times may vary depending on location, elevation and reservoir levels.”
While repair work and maintenance have been completed, many residents say the issue extends beyond a single burst pipe or planned shutdown. For communities that have endured repeated outages, the growing concern is whether the city’s ageing water infrastructure can reliably meet demand, with many now calling for long-term investment, greater transparency and more consistent communication to restore confidence in one of the municipality’s most essential services.
