As the drought worsens, the Department of Water Affairs and Sanitation has warned South Africans to use water sparingly as persisting low dam levels could force government to use reserve water supply, which could be detrimental.

Spokesman Sputnik Ratau said the country’s water supply situation was bad with low dam levels.

“Nationally, our average dam levels is below 50%, this is very bad. The Vaal Dam is at 26% and could go down more if there is no rainfall…this is a serious drought situation,” he said.

“We were hoping for more rainfall by mid-October, but unfortunately it has not been so. Using the reserve supply will be detrimental, and fortunately, we are not there yet. We are hopeful for rain before such a step is taken.”

The Vaal Dam, situated in Vereeniging, south of Johannesburg, supplied most municipalities in Gauteng. A heat wave that has hit most parts of the country resulted in an increased water usage, forcing the City of Johannesburg to shut down supply in Midrand and some parts of Soweto.

The City’s water supply utility Johannesburg Water said Soweto’s Diepkloof and Orlando East reservoirs were eventually closed to allow the system to recover. This was due to high water usage that left the reservoirs in the areas empty over the weekend.

On Monday, the utility sent out an alert that Lenasia in the south of Johannesburg was running out of water and urged residents to stop misusing water or face a cut off.

Frustrated residents took to social media and complained that Johannesburg Water was implementing water rationing, which the utility denied.

“Water outages are caused by high water usage in various areas…residents have not made any improvement in reducing their usage. Residents are also requested to reduce their water usage by 15%, we all have to play our part,” Johannesburg Water said on Monday.

“Rand Water and Johannesburg Water are not doing water shedding or rationing. We were requested by the Department of Water and Sanitation to reduce waster usage by 15% to save water.”

Ratau said so far, five provinces are severely affected by the drought and have been declared disaster areas, with KwaZulu-Natal as the province worst affected. Other provinces were the Free State, Limpopo, Mpumalanga and the North West.