GEORGE TOWN, May 17 — The Penang Water Supply Corporation (PBAPP) should improve its crisis management to prevent sudden water cuts that have affected hundreds of thousands of consumers in the state, Air Putih assemblyman Lim Guan Eng said today.

Lim, who was formerly the PBAPP chairman when he was the Penang chief minister between 2008 and 2018, said the PBAPP chief executive officer needs to be able to face unexpected water crises.

"This is not the first time water cuts happened due to an incident, it has happened before so the PBAPP CEO should be better in crisis management to prevent this from happening again,” he said at a press conference after officiating a mural at the Penang Hill lower station this morning.

He was commenting on 400,000 water consumers who found their taps running dry last Sunday when water levels in Sungai Muda dropped due to a faulty barrage gate.

About 80 per cent of the water supply for Penang is extracted from Sungai Muda.

Lim said Penang has a contingency plan for droughts — the Mengkuang Dam in Bukit Mertajam, which holds 86.4 billion litres of water at full capacity.

He said the dam will be able to cover water supply for the island if Air Itam Dam and Teluk Bahang Dam dry up.

"About 20 per cent of the state’s water are from the two dams so Mengkuang Dam will be able to supply the 20 per cent if the two dams dry up,” he said.

He said Penang uses about one billion litres of water per day, 200 million from the two dams and 800 million from Sungai Muda.

In the event that the two dams dry up, about 300 million litres can be channelled from Mengkuang Dam to the Sungai Dua Water Treatment Plant to continue water supply to consumers uninterrupted, he added.

However, he said no one expected Sungai Muda to dry up due to unexpected incidents or sabotage.

He said the existing infrastructure only enabled 300 million litres per day to be channelled from Mengkuang Dam to the treatment plant, which will fall short of the 1 billion litres required each day.

"What we need now is to be able to transfer one billion litres of water from Mengkuang Dam to the treatment plant to supply to consumers in the event of an accident in Sungai Muda,” he said.

As at 11am today, water supply has been normalised for almost 100 per cent of Penang water consumers, according to PBAPP.

"Some areas and neighbourhoods are still experiencing water issues but these are primarily "local” issues related to pipe bursts, air locks and local pump house issues; as well as some problems with "internal reticulation systems” involving internal water pumping systems within apartment block premises,” it said in a statement on its Facebook page.

PBAPP said it is closely monitoring the overall stability of Penang’s water supply system towards the full recovery phase.

"Meanwhile, our work teams are still working hard to resolve issues on the ground,” it said.

Those still experiencing water shortages can call the PBAPP 24-hour Call Centre at 04-255 8255.