Sibu water pressure back to normal

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ON THE GROUND: Wong (left) checks with his staff on developments at the Bukit Lima Raw Water Intake’s Generator House.

SIBU: The problem of low water pressure and supply disruption in town areas was resolved around 1am yesterday.

Sibu Water Board (SWB) and Sesco managed to power up the pump house around midnight on Friday.

On Friday, a fire broke out at the Bukit Lima Raw Water Intake’s Generator House, and it led to consumers in town areas experiencing low water pressure after 4.30pm.

Those in the upper floors of buildings had dry taps.

Speaking to thesundaypost yesterday, SWB general manager Daniel Wong assured there would be no more water supply disruption despite damage to the raw water pump.

“This is because it (raw water pump) is just a standby generator set which only runs when there is a power failure.

“So long as there is no prolonged power failure, there will be no problem to our pumping of raw water. Even when we can’t pump the raw water, our treated water pump can still supply water from the reservoir, which usually last between six and eight hours, depending on the level of consumption.”

Wong said affected consumers were notified of the disruption through SMS.

The current water consumption in Sibu is about 130 million litres daily (MLD).

“Our treatment plants in Bukit Lima and Salim have no problem in meeting the demand. In fact, Salim treatment plant still has a lot of spares.

“The plant in Bukit Lima can produce around 45 MLD while Salim can generate 150.”

On their SMS service, he advised more consumers to register their hand phone numbers with SWB.

That way consumers could be alerted about supply interruption or bills due for payment, he said.

“As of now, more than one-third of our registered consumers have registered their hand phones with us. We hope the rest would do so as well.”