Race against time to restore town’s water supply

The efforts to repair the serious damage to the main pipeline in Chryssiida was still ongoing on Sunday afternoon, with DEYAK estimating that the town’s water supply could be restored at around 2 p.m., provided no new failures occur in the network.

The works began at 11 p.m. on Saturday and continued without interruption throughout the night. From the early hours of Sunday morning, the DEYAK crew was reinforced with additional personnel and equipment, in an effort to reduce the inconvenience to residents and restore the network’s normal water supply.

However, according to sources within the utility’s management, the operation proved particularly difficult. As they report, each time a section of the aging pipeline is repaired and pressure is restored to the system, a new leak appears a few metres further along. “Wherever the network is patched, the pressure causes it to burst further down,” they note, describing a pipeline that has exceeded its limits.

DEYAK has already planned a permanent solution to the problem, involving the replacement of the problematic section of the pipeline—about 250 metres long—in the affected area. A contractor has been secured for the project, and funding will be covered by the utility’s own resources.

The intervention is scheduled for next September. Until then, the hope is that the summer period will not bring further unpleasant surprises to a network that is being tested daily by its age and the increased demands of the season.

GIORGOS KATSAITIS