Durban - When the country asked to go down to level 2 of the lockdown, we think the switch man at Eskom heard wrong. On Thursday, South Africans woke up to news the power giant was implementing Stage 2 loadshedding until 10pm, threatening it could last until the weekend.
In a statement issued on Thursday morning, Eskom said it would implement rotational power cuts from 8am to 10pm due to an increase in breakdowns of its generation units, warning that the blackouts could continue into the weekend.
Eskom said these units removed more than 2 000 MW of capacity from the system, adding that there was a high possibility of loadshedding escalating to Stage 3 for the evening peak.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday speculation was rife the country could be downgraded from level 3 to level 2 of the national lockdown.
While it is yet to be officially confirmed, many are holding thumbs that the announcement will be made by President Cyril Ramaphosa this weekend and he may just overturn the ban on alcohol and the sale of tobacco products.
That said, we can always rely on the folks in Twitterville to keep us entertained while we continue to “breathe through the wound”. #Level2 trended for most of Thursday morning and tweeps comparing and cracking jokes at level 2 vs stage 2. This is what they had to say:
The Country is about to go to level 2 and eskom is implementing stage 2 what an equalizer #Loadshedding pic.twitter.com/RsGQn8GwlN
— @DarkSpark🧔🏿 (@Makwela_N) August 13, 2020
Lockdown level 2.
Loadshedding level 2.
Equality.
Wonder if the “sources” got the right message. You sure it was “level 2” and not “stage 2”?
— Schalk Louw | Mr Louwcal 🇿🇦 (@SchalkLouw) August 13, 2020
We really cant just have nice things... Level 2 but now also Stage 2#lockdown #Loadshedding pic.twitter.com/5AeHcgTz6O
— EZAverage (@EZaverage) August 13, 2020
#Loadshedding We’ve all been asking for Level 2 all week and well, Eskom delivered😶 pic.twitter.com/Sp5YG7tEFL
We're moving to level 2 then comes news of #Loadshedding. We will never be happy as a country 🤞🏽 pic.twitter.com/yn9xGku617
— TshepiKele (@kele_tshepi) August 13, 2020
IOL