Johannesburg
The continent’s richest city was built on gold, but it’s now defined by chaos, crime and corruption more than ever.
It encapsulates the wider collapse of basic services across South Africa.
From a broken railway network disrupting trade to archaic sanitation that triggered a recent cholera outbreak near the capital, Pretoria, parts of the country increasingly look like a failing state.
S'thembile Cele Bloomberg 16 juni 2023
Deadly Disease Arrives at the Doorstep of South African Power
Cholera largely disappeared in developed economies with modern sewage systems. Its return near Pretoria shows how far a nation has fallen.
What Happens When the Lights Go Out?
The horrors South Africa has endured thanks to its unreliable power grid may be visited upon other countries that aren’t paying attention.
Millions of people in Texas lost power for days when the grid there seized in early 2021. Puerto Rico went through weeks and then months of rolling blackouts following devastating hurricanes several years ago.
Now consider South Africa, the second-largest economy on the African continent and home to 61 million people. The entire country has faced rolling blackouts for about 15 years.
How can that be? And what does the present and future hold for a country that doesn’t have a reliable source of electricity?
Timothy L. O'Brien Bloomberg 20 juni 2023
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