Large swaths of Trinidad were left without a pipe-borne water supply for most of yesterday following a mid-morning fire at the country’s main water treatment plant.
According to reports, the fire at the Caroni Water Treatment Plant in Piarco started around 10.45 am when Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) employees were doing welding repairs to a section of the facility.
Although no one was injured and the fire was quickly extinguished by fire officers from the Piarco Fire Station, operations at the plant, which services almost three quarters of WASA’s residential customers, were immediately ceased.
In a press release issued yesterday, the authority’s corporate communications manager Daniel Plenty said 80 per cent of repairs were completed by 1.30 pm.
At 4 pm, WASA said that electrical repairs had been completed ahead of schedule and the plant was restored to full operation as at 3.30 pm.
The areas affected included most of northwest Trinidad from San Juan to St James, almost all of central Trinidad and Debe, Siparia, Penal and Fyzabad in south Trinidad.
The T&T Guardian understands that schools and health centres in the affected areas were not so severely affected so as to force their early closure. A truck-borne water supply was also offered by WASA to assist customers who were most affected by yesterday’s incident.
Yesterday’s incident is the second time this year that the plant was shut down. In February, WASA was forced to close the plant temporarily after its supply was contaminated by a petroleum-based substance.
Meanwhile, WASA is advising customers in Carenage, Point Cumana and Glencoe that their water supply will be interrupted between 8 am and 4 pm today.
Plenty, in a press release issued hours before the fire at the Caroni plant, said the disruption to customers serviced by the Tucker Valley Pumping Station is to facilitate an interconnection at Guave Road, Chaguaramas.