MTN confirmed on Tuesday that 500 of its sites have shut down due to the ongoing floods in some parts of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN).
According to Independent Media, the South African mobile telecommunications company said that the floods have caused a lot of damage to infrastructure and have caused power outages in the province.
“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,” Jacqui O’Sullivan, MTN SA’s spokesperson, said.
Areas that have been impacted by the outage include Durban South, South Coast, Umlazi, Amanzimtoti, Ballito, and Salt Rock, according to the giant network provider.
O’Sullivan said that their major challenge is getting to the impacted areas at the moment because the roads are flooded.
The floods have also caused an uproar on social media with a lot of pictures and videos of cars floating in the water. The hashtag #KZNFloods has been trending top of the trends list on Twitter on Tuesday.
“We know those affected need to be able to contact their families and friends. Access to connectivity is our priority and we are deploying all possible resources to assist,” O’Sullivan said.
O’Sullivan added that the company’s customers should rest assured that its technicians are working to restore connectivity in the affected areas.