Residents of Merebank, south of Durban, are publicly pressing eThekwini Municipality to fix a broken sewer pipeline that has been spilling raw sewage between railway tracks beneath the M4 freeway and along the Himalayas Road Bridge area for months, according to a report published on 11 September 2026 by IOL. The local authority has acknowledged the failure, saying its technical teams have now completed a deep excavation and repaired a 400mm diameter sewer line, with manhole construction and site cleaning under way (IOL).
Key takeaways
- Raw sewage has been flowing between railway tracks below the M4 at Merebank for months, with photographs taken on 1 July 2026 showing the spill extending more than 150 metres along Clairwood Logistics Park and Barrackpur Road (IOL).
- eThekwini Municipality states the failed line is 400mm in diameter and that excavation more than four metres deep was completed to enable repair, with a new manhole now being built (IOL).
- The municipality estimates it needs about R4.6 billion to refurbish all wastewater treatment works to meet Green Drop compliance (IOL).
- Acting eThekwini Water and Sanitation director Sibusiso Vilane reported 46% wastewater Green Drop compliance at the end of June 2026 against an annual target of 90% (IOL).
- A separate Reservoir Hills failure on Siripat Road saw municipal crews re-orient a cracked pipe because no budget was available to replace it, according to a local source (IOL).
What happened: a multi-month network failure under the M4
Concerned resident Raven Naidoo told IOL that raw sewage has been flowing between the railway tracks below the M4 at Merebank, a problem first reported to the municipality's Area-Based Management team and referred onward for investigation and rectification (IOL). Photographs taken on 1 July 2026 show the spill extending more than 150 metres along Clairwood Logistics Park and Barrackpur Road, Naidoo said (IOL).
Municipal teams have inspected manholes along Basil February Road, Krishna Rabilal Road, Himalayas Road and Barrackpur Road while trying to locate the blockage, and a winch and tractor-loader backhoe were requested, Naidoo said (IOL). In August 2026 contractors excavated alongside Lansdowne Road, but sewage continued to flow, and residents have reported persistent foul odour and mosquito infestation (IOL).
"Despite these efforts, the problem has continued," Naidoo told the outlet, arguing that ratepayers cannot be expected to log the same defect repeatedly while teams inspect, excavate, and the spill keeps running (IOL).
What happened: the municipality responds, and the wider compliance picture
On Friday the municipality said technical teams were on the ground attending to the leak, that extensive excavation more than four metres deep had been completed, and that the 400mm diameter sewer line had been repaired (IOL). Teams were building a new manhole and had begun cleaning the railway side and affected areas, the municipality added (IOL).
The Merebank incident sits inside a wider capacity and compliance squeeze. The municipality has reported an estimated R4.6 billion requirement to refurbish all wastewater treatment works to meet Green Drop standards, and acting director Sibusiso Vilane told a recent eThekwini Executive Committee meeting that the Water and Sanitation directorate was at 46% Green Drop compliance as of the end of June 2026 against a 90% annual target (IOL). Dr Jack Bloom, Deputy Minister of Water and Sanitation, conducted a two-day oversight visit to Durban on 20 and 21 August 2026, framing water and sanitation service delivery and accountability as central to the engagement (IOL).
In a separate Reservoir Hills case, a local source alleged that municipal teams inspected a failing pipeline on Siripat Road but, lacking budget to replace the pipe, turned it around with the crack on top to stop ground spillages (IOL).
Specification read
Translating for a treatment-plant buyer: a 400mm diameter gravity sewer at roughly 4m depth is mid-range collection infrastructure, well above household service connections but below the trunk mains that feed a wastewater treatment works (general industry range, not from the sources). A spill running 150m along a rail reserve points to a continuous, moderate-to-high-rate leak rather than a one-off blockage, and the municipality's stated need for about R4.6 billion to bring all its works to Green Drop compliance frames this as a network-wide capital problem rather than an isolated repair (IOL). For a procurement engineer the procurement signal is failure-driven, not growth-driven: the spend will be on trenchless or open-cut sewer rehabilitation, manhole reconstruction, and the screening, primary, biological (commonly A2O, MBR or SBR), and tertiary/disinfection stages that a compliance push at the 90% Green Drop target implies (IOL). If your plant is a mid-sized Municipal works in the tens of thousands of cubic metres per day range, with a collection network that includes 400mm-diameter gravity sewers and a regulator pushing for Integrated Sewage Treatment upgrades, this event reads as a green light for sewer-rehab and manhole-rebuild packages alongside biological-stage refurbishment, and as a reminder that collection failures shift the influent load arriving at your headworks. Treatment-train choices for projects of this class are compared in our MBR vs Conventional Activated Sludge footprint guide and the MBR vs Conventional Activated Sludge case study.
FAQ
What size of sewer line failed in Merebank? eThekwini Municipality states the failed line is 400mm in diameter and was buried more than 4m deep, requiring extensive excavation before repair (IOL).
How big is eThekwini's overall wastewater compliance gap? The municipality has estimated it needs about R4.6 billion to refurbish all wastewater treatment works to Green Drop standards, and reported 46% compliance at end-June 2026 against a 90% annual target (IOL).
What kind of work should a supplier expect to bid on? Reported scope is sewer-line rehabilitation, deep excavation, manhole reconstruction and cleaning of the affected rail-side areas, with a wider compliance-driven upgrade programme implied by the R4.6 billion refurbishment estimate (general industry range, not from the sources).
How long is a typical lead time for a 400mm-diameter sewer rehabilitation package at 4m depth? Engineering judgement only: trenchless rehabilitation of a mid-range gravity sewer at this depth is typically scoped over several months from award to commissioning, with site works dependent on weather, traffic management and shutdown windows (general industry range, not from the sources).
