GEORGE TOWN, Jan 28 — The Penang Water Supply Corporation (PBAPP) said the scheduled water supply disruption that was to begin tomorrow (January 29) for diversion of the 600 millimetre (mm) pipeline across Sungai Perai, has temporarily been postponed to 11.30pm on Tuesday (January 30).
In a statement, PBAPP said the matter was agreed upon after taking into account the requests of users in the affected areas who wanted more time before the implementation of Plan B.
“PBAPP agrees that this (longer downtime) will make it easier for all affected users,” according to the statement.
“We plan to provide at least 24 hours so that all 120,000 (affected) consumers have sufficient time to store enough water before implementing Plan B of the scheduled water distruption (600 mm pipe diversion).”
Previously, PBAPP said the scheduled water supply disruption involved 120,000 user accounts in Penang’s Southwest district.
PBAPP said the water supply disruption was due to a large leak in the 1,350 mm pipeline at the bottom of the Sungai Perai last Tuesday.
It explained that although the re-clamping works have been done since last Friday, the pipe is still leaking and is at risk of leaking again until diversion works are carried out to replace it.
“Due to the risk factor, Plan B was immediately implemented after all affected users received their water supply,” it said.
According to PBAPP, as at 6.30pm today, a total of 109,000 of the 120,000 affected users had received their water supply.
It said it would try to restore water supply to the remaining 11,000 affected users by tonight or early tomorrow morning (January 29).
The leaking pipe at the bottom of Sungai Perai last Tuesday was the third incident after incidents in December last year and on January 12.
Following this, the Penang government implemented a method of installing a temporary replacement pipeline across the Sungai Perai, which will work for at least eight months, while waiting for the permanent pipeline replacement to be completed. — Bernama
