Bulawayo runs dry, amid cholera fears

THE Bulawayo City Council has prolonged the disruption of water supplies to most city suburbs due to an electrical fault that happened at the Criterion water works.

In a statement the City Council said the Criterion Water Treatment Works suffered an electrical fault on one of its transformers resulting in an electrical fault taking place and this disrupted water supplies to suburbs supplied by the water works.

"The water works were without water from Friday as of 1920 till Sunday 0025 due to the electrical fault. This meant that there was no water treatment during that period affecting the reservoir levels in the various distribution zones. ZETDC worked tirelessly to have power restored back to Criterion and power was restored. Full treatment recommenced soon after and this is in progress. We anticipate that the city reservoirs continue to recover and water supply is restored to all affected areas," read the statement.

Last week the local authority issued a notice of interruption of supplies to facilitate the installation of new protection relays to protect the transformers of Ncema and Fernill Pump Stations leaving most suburbs stranded without any water.

Due to these water interruptions, some suburbs have gone for a week without water and residents are now scared they might contract cholera that is on the surge in most parts of the country.

One of the affected suburbs is Magwegwe which has not received water for the past week and residents are now getting water from an unsafe source.

A resident from Magwegwe Mrs Edith Kurewa said they have not had water for the past week and a solution is they are now getting water from a burst pipe along Masiyephambili road that is always pumping water.

She said because the water comes from an open source of water and people from different households all come with their buckets, she is certain cholera cases might start coming from their water source.

"Some people come with really dirty buckets and because of that you will be seeing that they may even be used for their toilets but will still use them to get water here. That alone is a hazard because you will be after them and because we have no option you will just take the water from there. I wish instead of the water shedding council would at least do water rationing because as it is we are no longer doing anything at our homes since we spend hours sitting here waiting for our turns to get water," Mrs Kurewa said.