Beit Bridge town has been hit by a serious water shortage, following the flooding of the pump at the water treatment plant as a result of the torrential rains that pounded the district last week.

The water treatment pump, which is located a few metres from the Limpopo River, was submerged and local engineers from the National Water Authority are still trying to drain the water from the pump. The floods also left the back-up generators submerged and affected the power system.

The border town has been without water since Wednesday last week and the residents are relying on 33 boreholes, which were drilled at various strategic points at the height of the cholera outbreak in 2008. The town secretary, Dr Sipho Singo, told Limpopo Mirror that the taps would remain dry for the next seven days while they tried to repair the pump station.

The town needs at least 15 000 cubic metres of water per day, but the local authority has been supplying a third of the daily requirement. The town has 4 000 houses and is home to more than 40 000 people.

The floods have also affected construction work on the new treatment pump. Singo said the floods had also damaged the water and sewer reticulation infrastructure. He said four points had been damaged on the main sewer line and three points had since been repaired.

Singo added that the Dulibadzimu bus terminus and several link roads had been damaged extensively and their engineering department was working on them. “We expect to start pumping water to the houses in a week. At the moment, our engineers are working round the clock to fix the pump,” he said.

Singo said they were doing everything necessary to avoid the outbreak of water-borne diseases such as cholera.