The pumping of piped drinking water to the capital city was disrupted on Wednesday evening when a 1200 mm pipeline burst at Vazhayila.
After getting reports of water jetting out from the damaged ‘pre-stressed concrete’ pipeline, engineers of the Kerala Water Authority scrambled to shut down the two treatment plants located on either side of the river Karamana at Aruvikkara. These two plant service the Peroorkada zone and the Observatory zone respectively. Most parts of the capital city fall under these two distribution zones of the KWA.
KWA engineers said here that repair work on the line can be started only after it is emptied of water. This is expected to take a couple of hours more. Normal pumping of water in line is expected to be resumed only by Thursday evening, engineers coordinating the repair work said. The repair work involves removing a 10-meter section of the line and the time for repair may vary depending on whether the line has burst or has developed a leak in a joint, engineers added.
The supply of water through the Willingdon water works scheme-commissioned in the 1930s-would not be affected, KWA engineers said. This scheme services areas coming under the low-distribution zone; these include the Fort area, Sreekanteswaram, parts of Vanchiyoor, Manacaud and parts of Attukal.
