outbreak in the peri-urban region north of Pretoria has highlighted the water crisis that has plagued Hammanskraal for nearly 20 years. have died of the acute intestinal infection, typically spread through contaminated water, in Hammanskraal, where South Africa’s outbreak is largely concentrated.
Since 2011, the city has supplied farmers in the Apies River daily with clean drinking water after their water supply was contaminated by sewage pumped into the water supply — rivers, dams and underground water — from Rooiwal. “The wastewater treatment work is not functional, and it is polluting water resources and the environment, the Apies River, groundwater and the surrounding landscape,” he wrote.
Because of the method of disposal of the sludge, the borehole water is unusable and irrigation dams are full of sludge.