Taps run dry in Dhaka as power cuts cripple water supply

Wednesday 12th October 2022 06:27 EDT
 

Dhaka: For large parts of the day, life in much of Dhaka is punctuated by a string of power outages leaving residents faced with unrelenting heat and other hardships in the lurch. To make matters worse, the revival of the dreaded load-shedding regime, borne out of an escalating energy crisis globally, has had a crippling effect on the water supply to large swathes of the city, hampering daily chores such as cooking, cleaning and bathing

Many pumps operated by the Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority, or WASA, and those in the residential and commercial buildings are rendered inoperative during the hour-long power cuts that now occur up to six times a day.

Even if there is water in the supply line, without electricity, it cannot be pumped up to the rooftop tanks. In some buildings, the owners also use their own pumps to draw water from the lines. The situation has worsened since a national grid failure on Oct 4.

WASA has deployed more than 900 water pumps across the city. But the pumps cannot operate without electricity, becoming inactive during power outages. Water production has also decreased since the introduction of power rationing amid a global energy crisis.


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