The water outage will affect a large part of Johannesburg, including Roodepoort, Randburg, Langlaagte, Southdale, and Soweto.

Retailers such as Pick n Pay, Checkers and Spar have seen an increased demand for five-litre bottles of water, while West Pack and Crazy Plastics battle to meet the demand for storage containers.

In scenes similar to those from the Covid-19 lockdown, customers have been panic buying vast amounts of bottled water and storage containers and this has left food retailers such as Pick n Pay, Checkers, and Spar under pressure to replenish stock quickly, as late customers demand more supply.    

Checkers and Pick n Pay at Ferndale on Republic have, since Saturday, seen five litre bottles of water fly off shelves amid soaring demand, particularly aQuellé, Bonaqua, Nestlé, Clover, and store brands.

One Checkers sales assistant said, "Earlier this morning, we had five litres bottles of Thirsti water filling almost the entire store, but we’ve now run out, and most of these brands are in demand, from Nestlé, Clover, aQuellé, Thirsti, and others."

Meanwhile, roaming water tankers will be provided to the affected areas and alternative water supply will be arranged at hospitals, clinics, schools, municipal offices, police stations, and shopping centres.