Pipe repairs left a part of the city without water this past weekend, and just when the problem seemed resolved, Nelsville was again left dry on Tuesday.
Residents were further outraged that nothing about the situation had been communicated to them.
Nelsville resident Ms Mary Schatz said the area was left without water for the whole Saturday until the evening.
“I phoned Sembcorp Silulumanzi, whose operators didn’t know what was going on. The next morning when I came home from church, the taps were dry again, until the afternoon.”
This left residents without the use of their toilets and a shortage of drinking water in the sweltering heatwave. The water supply was, however, restored and all went well until yesterday morning, when the area was again left without water, or an explanation.
“I fetched water from a tap at the cemetery to wash before I came into town,” Schatz said.
“It is every day now, and in this heat!”
Spokesman for Sembcorp Silulumanzi, Mr Richmond Jele, confirmed that the water supply had been interrupted. He explained that their maintenance team had to replace a damaged manifold, situated on the corner of Samora Machel Drive and Kragbron Street. The manifold is on one of the main arteries of the water supply feeding Nelsville, Valencia and Steiltes.
“Because there are a number of pipes connecting to that manifold, it took some time to complete the job,” he said.
Jele added that any disruptions in water outside of office hours should be communicated by the 24-hour control room through SMS to affected customers. But residents claim their attempts to discover the reason for the interruption added to their frustrations.
Ms Sanley van der Merwe, the ward councillor in the area, explained that she had initially battled to get to the bottom of the matter. But she met with Sembcorp Silulumanzi on Tuesday.
According to her they explained that the maintenance on the manifold had been planned, but the work took longer than expected. As a result, the reservoir in Nelsville ran dry, because its capacity is less than that of the one in Valencia.
Once the water was turned back on, after the maintenance had been completed, it took a while for the supply to return to normal.
She said Sembcorp denied that the water had been interrupted the next day as well, and added that the number of residents she had spoken to said they in fact had water on the Sunday.
Van der Merwe added that Sembcorp had indicated to her that since they had not anticipated that the work would take as long as it did, they did not communicate the matter to residents.
She added that the interruption on Tuesday resulted from a burts pipe elsewhere, and it was unrelated to the manifold.
By the time of going to press, the situation was expected to have returned to normal.
Jele had not confirmed the details at the time of going to press.
- Read more about water in Mbombela here.
