Water crisis ravages Mutare

SYDNEY SAIZE IN MUTARE

The city of Mutare has been hit by a city-wide water crisis following a technical problem at the Odzani and Christmas Pass reservoirs, Business Times can report,

The problem can take more than 10 days to fix.

In a statement, the local authority said there was a “developing city-wide water shortage emanating from technical challenges between Odzani and Christmas Pass reservoirs”.

“Council is in the process of hiring motorised water bowsers to assist distressed customers. While our engineering team is working flat out to bring the situation to normalcy, it may take up to 10 days to completely bring the situation to normalcy for all our customers,” it said.

The city with over half a million residents has struggled with its water reticulation system for more than two decades.

Some residents have raised concern as that has seen many resorting to fetching water from unsafe and unprotected water bodies.

“At least now we need to know the truth behind such a crisis in this city. We thought the Pungwe Water Project initiated more than 20 years ago was going to be the panacea to the crisis, but here we are stuck to the same challenge,” Edson Dube of the United Mutare Residents and Ratepayers’ Trust said.

He said residents had been advised that the Pungwe pipeline project commissioned during the tenure of the late mayor Lawrence Mudehwe would see the water issue being resolved.

But, it still dogs the city.

“We remain resolute to have this problem ended. How can we have water challenges in almost all the suburbs yet we have a perennial flow of water from the Pungwe River and that is supposed to supply water to the city,” Dube asked.

Mutare resident and coordinator of the Mutare Residents and Ratepayers Association, David Mutambirwa said: “As residents we are tired of the flimsy reasons we get from the city fathers on why as residents we cannot get water on a daily basis. It is really funny that some children in Dangamvura have not experienced seeing water coming out of their tapes in their homes.”

Engineering experts have attributed the water crisis to high demand following an increased population density for the city, which has seen previously laid down water pipes too small to cope with the high numbers of residents and sprouting new suburbs.

The city has not managed to augment the pipes in some areas to cater for the high demand of the resource leading to an on and on water bursts affecting the supply lines in both residential and industrial areas.

In addition to water burst pipes and limited supply levels, the city fathers have often admitted they lose close to 50% of purified water in Mutare’s oldest and populous suburb of Sakubva, through linkages and illegal water connections.

With such a serious water crisis, health experts fear an outbreak of diseases linked to unhygienic practices associated with the use of unsafe water.