Anger is mounting among East London residents living west of the city after a water outage left them high and dry for more than a week.
Several residents of Tsholomnqa, Kayser’s Beach and rural villages along a 27km Buffalo City municipal water pipeline yesterday said they had been without water for nine days already.
Noreen Earl, who is retired in Tsholomnqa, said although they had been experiencing erratic water supply since December, the latest outage was the worst yet.
“We have had no water for nine days already and just before that we had nothing for a week.”
Although she has a borehole on her property and was using the undrinkable brackwater supply to wash and flush the toilet, Earl said others living in Ncera villages were not so lucky.
“Although we are all suffering, my heart goes out to the people in the villages who now have to walk for miles to try to get water.”
She said BCM officials had told her when she regularly called about the ongoing shortage that ageing infrastructure, vandalism and theft of water supplies from the pipeline were to blame.
Kayser’s Beach resident Glynis Smith yesterday said they were extremely desperate to get a steady water supply again.
“I thought that load-shedding was bad. No. Water has a greater impact; you can still cook on gas and fires but you can’t make magic water out of a stone.”
She said the latest outage was the second time in three weeks.
According to Smith, the situation was so desperate she had packed up her family – including a young child – and gone to East London to shower at a relative’s house.
Buffalo City Metro spokesman Keith Ngesi said yesterday they had discovered a 10-metre section of pipe that supplied areas west of the city had burst.
He said although technicians were working on the problem and there was water in the holding reservoir, they were waiting for the contractor to augment the system.
He said five water tankers had been used to try and alleviate problems since last week.
“We anticipate the water will be restored as soon as the augmentation is done.”
Ngesi said BCM would investigate claims the long outage could have been caused by vandals and water thieves down the line.
“A separate investigation will be conducted and proper action will be taken if the allegations are true.
“We also urge the members of the community who have information to inform us directly.”
He said BCM would assess the Kayser’s Beach situation and send a tanker there if needed.
Local DA PR councillor Dillon Webb said yesterday while many areas down the line were left high and dry without water for days, Needs Camp residents were annoyed that a broken pipe had not yet been fixed by BCM.
“It is running like a river, lots of water is being wasted.”
He said the area had recently suffered water shortages and although BCM had repaired a broken pipe and restored the supply, the pipe broke again a few days ago. — davidm@dispatch.co.za
Residents desperate as water runs out
Several residents of Tsholomnqa, Kayser’s Beach and rural villages along a 27km Buffalo City municipal water pipeline yesterday said they had been without water for nine days already.
Noreen Earl, who is retired in Tsholomnqa, said although they had been experiencing erratic water supply since December, the latest outage was the worst yet.
“We have had no water for nine days already and just before that we had nothing for a week.”
Although she has a borehole on her property and was using the undrinkable brackwater supply to wash and flush the toilet, Earl said others living in Ncera villages were not so lucky.
“Although we are all suffering, my heart goes out to the people in the villages who now have to walk for miles to try to get water.”
She said BCM officials had told her when she regularly called about the ongoing shortage that ageing infrastructure, vandalism and theft of water supplies from the pipeline were to blame.
Kayser’s Beach resident Glynis Smith yesterday said they were extremely desperate to get a steady water supply again.
“I thought that load-shedding was bad. No. Water has a greater impact; you can still cook on gas and fires but you can’t make magic water out of a stone.”
She said the latest outage was the second time in three weeks.
According to Smith, the situation was so desperate she had packed up her family – including a young child – and gone to East London to shower at a relative’s house.
Buffalo City Metro spokesman Keith Ngesi said yesterday they had discovered a 10-metre section of pipe that supplied areas west of the city had burst.
He said although technicians were working on the problem and there was water in the holding reservoir, they were waiting for the contractor to augment the system.
He said five water tankers had been used to try and alleviate problems since last week.
“We anticipate the water will be restored as soon as the augmentation is done.”
Ngesi said BCM would investigate claims the long outage could have been caused by vandals and water thieves down the line.
“A separate investigation will be conducted and proper action will be taken if the allegations are true.
“We also urge the members of the community who have information to inform us directly.”
He said BCM would assess the Kayser’s Beach situation and send a tanker there if needed.
Local DA PR councillor Dillon Webb said yesterday while many areas down the line were left high and dry without water for days, Needs Camp residents were annoyed that a broken pipe had not yet been fixed by BCM.
“It is running like a river, lots of water is being wasted.”
He said the area had recently suffered water shortages and although BCM had repaired a broken pipe and restored the supply, the pipe broke again a few days ago. — davidm@dispatch.co.za
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