KZN floods take down 500 MTN towers

MTN says that the heavy rains in KwaZulu-Natal has caused widespread infrastructure damage and power outages resulting in over 500 MTN sites going offline in the region.

Due to the serious nature of the outages, MTN has activated contingency plans for site restoration, however, access to many of the impacted sites remains a major challenge.

“The flooding in the KZN region has caused power outages at many of our sites and while we have battery back-up at many of the sites, these batteries have been depleted,” said MTN SA’s corporate affairs executive Jacqui O’Sullivan.

“Our major challenge right now is gaining access to the sites with many roads being damaged or flooded, preventing us from refuelling our batteries or restoring power to the site.”

MTN said the major areas impacted include Durban South, South Coast, Umlazi, Malagazi, Amanzimtoti, Ballito, and Salt Rock.

Other areas are also affected.

MTN’s assured those impacted that its technicians are working to restore connectivity.

“We know those affected need to be able to contact their families and friends,” O’Sullivan said.

“Access to connectivity is our priority and we are deploying all possible resources to assist.”

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