Calling for unity in the Nelson Mandela Bay community, Chris Moseki, acting director of climate change analysis in the Department of Water and Sanitation, said on Wednesday that the entire community must take responsibility for the little water that remained. And mayor Eugené Johnson, in a rare media statement, detailed how close the city came to the catastrophic collapse of a major pipeline.

'In the late hours of Wednesday into the early hours of this cold [Thursday] morning, our teams dealt with a potentially severe challenge that threatened the entire water supply," said Nelson Mandela Bay mayor Eugené Johnson.

"Our municipal team continued to work throughout the night to find the exact location of the fault. It was discovered and had to be carefully dismantled. The damaged section has been isolated and water supply has been opened to the metro."

Teams eventually discovered that the fault was beneath a large gabion structure beside the 1200mm diameter pipe, which had to be carefully dismantled, according to a statement by the metro.

The Churchill Dam is likely to fail first unless the metro's catchment area receives significant rain. The latest information supplied by the metro is that the dam has 21 days...