Power disruptions continue to hit water supply — ministry

AMMAN — The Ministry of Water and Irrigation on Wednesday said that power outages at main water sources are still occurring in light of an “unprecedented and continuous increase in temperatures”.

The ministry said that the power cuts are causing “major disruptions” to water distribution around the Kingdom.

In a statement, the ministry also said that pumping from the Disi Water Conveyance Project has stopped due to a power outage, with more power cuts in main stations in the northern region in Irbid, Jerash, Ajloun and Mafraq.

Pumping at the Zaatari station and a number of supplying wells has also stopped, which is expected to cause disruptions to water distribution in Amman, Zarqa, Russeifa and the north, the ministry said, noting that its technical teams have been working round-the-clock since Tuesday to resolve the issues and compensate the affected areas as much as possible.

Under exceptional circumstances from the 327 wildfires that the Civil Defence Department has dealt with within 24 hours, extra water quantities had to be designated for their efforts from the main water sources as well, according to the statement.

The statement added that the fires occurred in Mastaba’s forest in Jerash and areas by the King Talal Dam had spread to over more than 1,500 dunums, and in Dogara in Irbid it had engulfed an area of over 1,000 dunums, in addition to fires in Halawa area in Ajloun, all of which the ministry said required additional water to extinguish the fires. 

The ministry urged the public to “understand” gravity of the size of the situation and its repercussions, as many people will receive their water turn late while others will be compensated for the turns they lost.

Sudden power outages in the past few weeks had caused disruption to the water distribution programme all over the Kingdom, Secretary General of Ministry of Water, Ali Subuh said on Tuesday.

Subuh said that 124 disruptions were registered after 53 main water sources had stopped pumping for over 271 hours during the period between March 1 and May 17.

Minister of Water and Irrigation Raed Abul Saud on Tuesday also urged the public to contact the main control room at 117116 to report any notes at any time. He also called on the public not to call the number except in cases of emergency.