Kennedy Murwira
The new town of Mpandawana has been running without water since last Thursday forcing its residents to look for alternative sources of water which may be hazardous to their health while the discontinuation of water supplies remain unexplained.
Water supplies were cut unexpectedly last Thursday evening with residents speculating that power outages were behind the problem. However power supplies were restored on Friday, the same day that residents started experiencing a lengthy period without water supplies. All the suburbs in the residential areas which include the Old Location, Hwiru, Gonville, Munhende and the Infill have been running without water since then.
The situation has forced residents to look for alternative water sources which include dug up wells which now sustain the majority of the households. In areas like the Old Location where there are no wells, residents are forced to trek long distances into the surrounding residential areas in search of water. The recent rains left pools of stagnant water which some of the residents fetch water for their bathing and laundry from. These pools of water may be posing a health hazard to the residents as they are unprotected.
Residents in the new town complained and said the absence of safe water was forcing most of them to resort to the use of ‘bush toilet’ system which posed a serious health threat to the growing population.
“We can no longer use our indoor toilets because there is no water to flush the human excreta into the sewer system. The only alternative is to use the bush and this poses a serious health threat as our children use paths in the bush on their way to school, especially Gutu United School and may play with the exposed human excreta,” said a vegetable vendor at the market who declined to be named.
” This is not the first time that this has happened. The market at Mpandawana Bus Terminus went for close to seven months without water leaving consumers who buy their green vegetables from the market exposed to disease. This also affected the toilets at the market which went for long periods without being attended to,” said the vendor who lives in Munhende suburb.
The sentiments were echoed by other residents who urged the council to attend to the water problem as a matter of urgency arguing that the present council may have been irked by the fact that the new Town Board is taking over the affairs of the town and were making the residents suffer intentionally.
Council officials were not immediately available for comment but have not yet offered any explanation to the residents regarding the causes behind the unexpected water cuts.
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