Limpet Mine Explodes Substation in Durban
Forty years ago, in the evening of 9 January 1986, a limpet mine exploded and damaged a substation in Jacobs, Durban. Later a second limpet exploded and subsequently killed an apartheid policeman and injured others and two electrical workers who had arrived at the scene of the first explosion.
At around 21:15, in the evening of 9 January 1986, while apartheid Police Sergeant Vincent Zimmerman was parking his car in Durban’s Yellowwood Park suburb, he heard a huge explosion and then decided to drive in the direction of the blast. Ten minutes later as he arrived at the Jacobs substation, on the corner of Chamberlain Road, in Wentworth, he found the place being cordoned off and a fire engine on standby. Sergeant Zimmerman decided to enter the station through the front gate, followed by Mervyn Dunn, of the Durban electricity department, and apartheid police Detective Constable Roelof van der Merwe.
At the first transformer, Zimmerman shined a torch that illuminated a large, jagged, hole in the scorched metal. According to Zimmerman, the large hole was caused by a limpet mine, as he informed Colonel Robert Welman, who had later joined them. When Colonel Welman moved to the second transformer, Sergeant Zimmerman went to the third, saying that it looked clean, as he shone his light on the grey metal. He then gave the torch to Colonel Welman as he left for the front gate.
At the gate, Zimmerman passed Sergeant Dudley Booyens, wh
