eThekwini Municipality has scheduled a 48-hour interruption on the Southern Aqueduct from 06:00 on Tuesday, 29 September, to 06:00 on Thursday, 1 October 2026. The City says contractors need the shutdown to construct and tie in two major connection chambers under Work Package 6 in Westville.
The notice says parts of the Inner West, Central and South regions may be affected. It lists reservoir-fed areas across Westville, Klaarwater, Chatsworth, Queensburgh, uMlazi and surrounding communities. Actual service effects may vary with reservoir storage and demand; the notice does not state that every listed customer will be without water for the full 48 hours.
The City reports that Work Packages 1, 2 and 3 are complete and commissioned, while Work Packages 4, 5 and 6 remain under construction. The tie-in is therefore a construction milestone, not completion of the overall Southern Aqueduct upgrade.
eThekwini says the completed network will serve approximately 1.2 million people and reduce the risk of failures, water losses and prolonged emergency repairs. That figure describes the project’s service population; it is not a verified estimate of the number affected by this particular shutdown. The notice gives no project value, tender identifier or revised completion date.
What it means
The interruption is an observable delivery milestone for one of Durban’s most important bulk-water upgrades. The accountability test is whether Work Package 6 is completed within the announced window, supply recovery is managed transparently, and the remaining work packages progress to commissioning without turning planned construction into prolonged outages.
Correction history
No material correction is recorded for this article as of 23 September 2026. Any correction will be listed on the corrections register.