MIRI – Former Miri mayor Datuk Lawrence Lai has urged authorities to hire experts from outside Sarawak to repair the bursting giant water pipeline that has caused people here to suffer from dry taps for the third day running.
“It is clear that the technicians and contractors from the Miri branch of the Northern Sarawak Water Supply Board are having great difficulties in dealing with this leaking main pipeline.
“Call in experts from outside, perhaps experts from Kuala Lumpur.
“There must be experts at the national level who have vast experience dealing with huge underground pipes since there are so many underground tunnels in KL.
“They may know how to swiftly repair serious damages involving underground piping.
“The Public Works Department, the Works Ministry, those in the geology and mining sectors … Surely they have the required experts at hand.
The water disruption in the city has reached crisis level already, and it is clear the local technicians are not able to overcome it,” he told reporters here yesterday.
Lai, who is also a lawyer, said Miri is running out of bottled drinking water already, as supermarkets and shops saw a desperate rush by residents to snap up all available water on sale.
In the meantime, Miri Disaster Management Committee chairman Datuk Lee Kim Shin admitted that the Miri technicians repairing the burst pipeline are facing great problems.
“The pipe kept bursting yet again even after repair was completed.
“The technicians will need at least two more days to fully repair the damaged pipeline,” he said in a statement.
Lee, who is state transport minister and Senadin state assemblyman, said there will be no water supply for the majority of Miri for the whole of this weekend.
More than 300,000 people in at least 65,000 households plus hundreds of shops, offices and schools are still without water supply since June 16.
The Northern Sarawak Water Supply Board had admitted that repair works were difficult as the main supply pipeline had been badly damaged.
“The pipeline bursts due to ground movements.
“Repair teams are at the site doing all they can to repair the damaged section.
In the meantime, we have been deploying water tankers to public collection centres,” Northern Sarawak Water Supply Board Chief Executive Officer Daniel Punang said in a statement.
Punang said the board is still probing into the causes behind the earth movement that caused the pipeline to burst.
“Those in need of water are told to go to specific collection centres where water tankers will be stationed,” he said.
The second water supply disruption within a week hit Miri district on Thursday, affecting an estimated 300,000 people in the northern Sarawak hub.
Supply to about 80% of the district of 350,000 was severed due to a rupture at a main pipeline during pre-dawn hours.
The incident happened six days after another, when the water pipeline was damaged due to construction works along the Miri-Bintulu Pan Borneo Highway. – The Vibes, June 18, 2022
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