On Wednesday, residents of Moulivakkam woke up to find their streets inundated. In many parts of the locality, residents had to wade through knee-deep water. As this was happening in mid-summer, they were more puzzled than alarmed.
In the early hours of Wednesday, unknown to these residents, drinking water gushing through a leak in the major pipeline conveying water from Veeranam lake to the city, had submerged several streets.
Residents said the streets were flooded with huge volumes of water in a short span of time.
“Precious drinking water was wasted. The leaked water got mixed with sewage that had been let into stormwater drains and stagnated on Paraniputhur Main Road,” said Imtiaz Ahamed, a resident of Mettu Street.
Many residents had to leave their vehicles behind and wade through the water to reach the main road to get to work or school. Residents alleged that though they had informed Chennai Metrowater early in the morning, workers arrived much later and were carrying out repairs on the pipeline until noon.
Metrowater officials said it was not a major leakage, which had been caused by a leak in an air valve, which had been fixed to let out entrapped air in such large pipelines.
The mild steel pipeline carries water from the tank at Kadampuliyur, after it is treated at Vadakuthu water treatment plant, to Porur.
An official said that this was the first time a leak in the pipeline conveying water from Veeranam lake has occurred. As Veeranam lake had been dried up for de-silting work, about 60 mld of water was drawn from borewells in the Neyveli aquifer, he said, adding this would not affect the water supply to the city and the damaged air valve had been replaced.
The major part of the pipeline had been sunk underground near the Porur lake across Mount-Poonamallee Road to prevent such instances and air valves had been fixed where the pipeline ran on an elevated level near bridges to allow accumulated air to escape, the official added.
