Never-ending story for city water woes

THE whole of Lae city was hit by continuous water cuts throughout the weekend and yesterday.
Most of Top Town and various suburbs around Eriku were severely affected when water
taps ran dry around
mid-morning on Sunday.
After lunch yesterday, Top Town – which is the central business district of the city – had suffered severe water problems.
Some businesses, banks, shops and the Lae court house were forced to close for the day. Officers at the district court registry said only special court cases were being conducted.
Clients of tenants at ANZ Bank building on Central Avenue were turned away by security guards.
The power cuts started at around 6pm on Saturday and were restored from time to time until midday yesterday.
An officer with the PNG Water Board treatment plant at Taraka said the water cuts were
related to power
outages during the weekend.
He said their stand by generators could only work for about four hours.
The officer said even though power was restored around 12pm yesterday, the power load required to operate their pressure pumps was not sufficient.
He said their whole water lines in the city’s system were completely empty because all the water was used up.
By late evening yesterday, the officer said water should be
restored because they were working tirelessly to fill all the water
lines before it gets to the reservoirs for distribution.