A suspected cable thief suffered burns when a municipal substation in a building in Evatt Street blew.
Municipality spokesperson, Roland Williams, says the breach of the substation caused an electricity outage over the PE Central area on Monday morning.
He says technicians isolated the substation and rerouted supply to the affected areas from other substations.
Williams says Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality is currently investigating attempted cable theft which he says may have caused the electrical outage.
He told Algoa FM News that power was restored at around 11.30.
"Upon closer investigation we discovered that the security of the sub-station had been breached in a suspected botched cable theft attempt. One of the suspects suffered burns. We cannot at this stage confirm the severity of the burns. We can confirm he was taken to hospital and he is receiving treatment" he said.
Meanwhile, an ADT security guard Gary van Deventer, explains what happened from their perspective.
"There were two guys in the electricity room scratching around, when it exploded. I followed and caught the one guy as he was busy injecting some heroin" he said
Pictures: Supplied
