SEVERAL communities have been left without water for days due to recurring burst pipes in Mariannridge.
Many residents were unable to go to work while affected schools had to close as during the repair, electrical cables were damaged which further delayed the repair and reconnection of water.
ALSO READ: Highway residents frustrated about prolonged power outages
“The Nagina area had no water on New Year’s Day and since then the number of burst pipes have been increasing,” said DA PR councillor, Marlaine Nair.
Those with vehicles were able to go to relatives to bath and fetch water, but sadly the poor were left to wait for tankers.
The tankers however were unable to service every household, which left the frail and elderly without water.
A Mariannridge resident, Denzil Mariller said this problem is affecting their children’s education. “We have a right to quality service from the municipality,” he said.
Resident and CPF chair in Nagina, Moses Pillay said they are tired of the water problem and hopes the municipality upgrades the infrastructure once and for all.
“Besides ailing infrastructure that should have been replaced years ago, loadshedding leading to pump failure is exasperating the problem. The Western aqueduct project, a giant pipeline that’s supposed to improve the supply of water to the West, has been stalled for years due to various issues. This needs to be looked at and prioritised,” said councillor Nair.
She called for the use of better qualified plumbers for faster turnaround times and increased budget for infrastructural upgrade.
“We will continue to fight on behalf of residents, however there is no quick fix to this problem. I would like to urge residents to prepare for these outages by storing sufficient water for emergencies,” said Nair.
She added that she would also like to thank every stakeholder for assisting residents during an extremely stressful few days.
eThekwini Municipality apologises for water challenges
The statement released by the municipality on Thursday, 6 February read:
“We apologise for the water challenges faced by our communities. Load shedding is a serious threat to the stability of our water supply. The city is experiencing water cuts as a result of electricity cuts. In some parts of our city we use a pump system to pump water to households, when there is power cuts the system gets affected and we cannot supply water.
It therefore takes time for the system to refill the pipes when the power is back on. The other challenge is that due to the high pressure system and pumps we are using, our infrastructure gets damaged when the power comes back on as the pressure will sometimes burst pipes in different areas which causes further delays to the supply of water to communities.
We currently rotating limited water tankers to the affected communities which also come at a huge cost and cannot supply to all communities at once and on a daily basis. We are also looking at options of trying to increase the number of water tankers as a temporary solution. We are also working around the clock in repairing damaged infrastructure.
We humbly apologise to the affected communities, we are doing everything possible to restore the system. We are also in the process of procuring back up generators which cost an arm and a leg to help mitigate the problem. These are expensive generators as they have to power up big high pressure pumps and will also therefore take some time to procure.
We therefore call for calm as we believe the situation will be restored soon.”
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