Effingham residents without water since Tuesday

Durban - Residents of Effingham Heights have called on the eThekwini Municipality to speed up the repair of a burst pipe.

Sibongile Sapo, 19, who lives on Effingham Road where the leak began early on Tuesday, told the Daily News they had not had water since then.

“When my younger sister went to shower on Tuesday morning, we found out that there was no water, and we had to ask our neighbour to help us out with water to drink, but even that and the water we had in the fridge is finished now,” said Sapo.

He said they were struggling to cook and calls to the municipality went unanswered.

Sapo said municipal workers attended to the burst pipe for the whole of Tuesday and returned on Wednesday morning, but the problem remained unsolved.

“Besides breaking up the pavement to try to get to where the burst is, they just left it as is, and we are suffering.

“I don’t know what the problem is; seeing so much water going to waste while we don’t have water in our house,” Sapo said.

Another Effingham Road resident, who asked to remain anonymous, said he feared that the water seeping into his yard would undermine a retaining wall and damage his home.

City spokeswoman Tozi Mthethwa said several factors had delayed repairs to the leak.

An inaccurate report on the nature and extent of the leak meant the wrong team was sent and had to be replaced.

“Burst pipes are prioritised so that the leak can be isolated quicker to avoid wastage of water.

“Often plumbers are re-routed to attend to much larger pipe bursts,” Mthethwa said.

“Weather conditions on rainy days make it difficult to trace and isolate a leak, and teams often have to wait until the rain stops and it is completely dry for them to begin to trace the source of the leak,” she said.

Mthethwa said incorrect addresses, unstructured addresses in rural areas and the nature of the terrain also led to delays in fixing leaks.