Tiswadi, Ponda water supply hit again as pipe tears

Ponda: A pipeline at Opa Water Works was ruptured by repeated power interruptions, hitting the potable water supply to Tiswadi and Ponda talukas on Saturday.This is the second pipeline rupture in less than a month. On June 26, the same line was ruptured by a “surge”. A surge means whenever water falls with a tremendous force, the pipeline carrying it bursts near the joints.That occurs when water is being fetched from a river to a treatment plant and the power supply is suddenly cut.The water was released on Saturday afternoon after the ruptured pipeline was welded. However, it will take another day to normalise the supply to households in Panaji and high-lying areas.Sunil Kerkar, an assistant engineer at the Curti water plant, said the rising main pipeline, by which a treatment plant gets raw water from the pumping station, developed a rupture during the intervening night of Friday and Saturday. The rupture was noticed around 1am and the water supply was immediately stopped, Kerkar said.Before the pipeline ruptured, power outages occurred at least three times on Friday. According to Kerkar, a sudden outage of electricity affects the pressure inside a pipeline resulting in a rupture.The rupture of the 750mm rising main pipeline of 40 million litres per day (MLD) water treatment plant at Opa Water Works at Khandepar, Ponda, affected the potable water supply to Tiswadi and Ponda on Saturday, said Soma Naik, an executive engineer of the department of drinking water.Sunil Shet, another assistant engineer at the Opa Water Works, said the 750mm mild steel rising main pipeline burst at midnight and repairs were taken up in the morning as the pipeline had to be emptied to facilitate electric welding.Once the repair work was completed, all reservoirs were filled and water released in the afternoon. However, some high-lying areas will receive supply only from Sunday afternoon, he said.