Despite a chilling reminder in August when a nine-year-old boy nearly lost his life after falling into an open manhole at the East London Zoo, it took the municipality months to cover another dangerous manhole outside Moonshine Private Edu-care in Braelyn — a walkway used daily by small children.
Moonshine Edu-care had been phoning the municipality for urgent assistance to replace the stolen manhole cover after numerous near accidents that saw children as young as two years old almost fall into the drain below.
After three months of relentless calls from parents and teachers at the school, the municipality finally placed a concrete slab over the open manhole last week Friday.
One parent said: “This was an accident waiting to happen because the hole is on the walkway to enter the school premises.
“The head of the school had been contacting the municipality almost daily to attend to this serious situation because we were all living in fear for the day when one of our children would succumb to a terrible fate.”
On August 17, little Ruben Kruger from Beacon Bay almost became a fatality when he fell into a manhole at the East London Zoo and was swept away by a stream of strong flowing sewage before luckily being rescued 500m away down from where he disappeared.
Ruben’s mother, Dean-Mari is horrified that little has been done in the wake of Ruben’s experience, to replace stolen manhole covers in the city, especially in areas where children are vulnerable to falling in.
Dean-Mari said: “We are pursuing legal action for what Ruben has been through because we want to set a precedent that it shouldn’t have to come to a child almost dying before action is taken to fix or replace broken infrastructure.
“Within two days after Ruben fell in, the municipality had placed a cement tile over that opening, proving that they do in fact have the resources and capacity to do their jobs — they just choose not to.
“Ruben is a completely changed child after what he has been through because the trauma he has experienced has stayed with him. He used to be so talkative and lively and now he is scared, withdrawn, full of anger and anxious, and we have no idea yet how this trauma will manifest once he is older.
“We were lucky with Ruben because more often than not, it doesn’t end in survival for anyone who falls through a manhole.”
Consulting Engineers SA CEO Chris Campbell attributes threats to public safety posed by open manholes to rampant nation-wide scrap metal theft and poor management in local government.
In September, it was revealed that vandalism and theft of 6,590 manhole covers cost the City of Cape Town more than R12m between July 2023 and June 2024, straining the city’s water and sanitation budget and leading to blockages and increased maintenance costs.
Campbell said: “Manhole cover theft has been happening everywhere in the country for years, spurred on by unscrupulous conduct in the scrap metal industry which has also motivated theft of water meter covers.
“Municipalities should have been proactive years ago in replacing manhole covers with recycled plastic material without resale value.
“This is being rolled out in larger metros with much success and the manhole covers produced from recycled plastic are durable, sustainable, and heavy.
“Once they are stolen, manhole covers are important to immediately replace because they play an important role in protecting public health and safety because the pipes are large enough to accommodate heavy flow that once you fall in, it’s difficult to survive.”
Campbell said that although a slab has been placed over the open manhole outside Moonshine Edu-care, this can only be viewed as a temporary measure because it presents safety hazard to pedestrians.
Campbell added: “If the slab is still there two to three years later then this compromises public safety.”
Moonshine Edu-care’s Bonita Reddy said the school was grateful that the manhole had been covered however she concurs with Campbell in that the slab is not sustainable in the long-term because the pupils, who have not yet mastered co-ordination skills, were tripping over the slab.