soweto cooling towers postcard

Soweto is a township of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality in Gauteng, South Africa, bordering the city's mining belt in the south. Its name is an English syllabic abbreviation for South Western Townships. Orlando Power Station is a decommissioned coal-fired power station in Soweto, South Africa. The power station was commissioned at the end of the Second World War and served Johannesburg for over 50 years. The two cooling towers are a prominent landmark in Soweto. They were built in 1951 to supplement the spray pond cooling system as this source of cooling was running at its capacity. The towers are now used for bungee and BASE jumping from a platform between the top of the two towers as well as a bungee swing into one of the towers.