Repair work on drinking water networks damaged following malicious acts has been completed in Guadeloupe.
Two towns, among the most populated in the archipelago, nevertheless remained without water on Sunday evening, announced the region's prefect.
“After the repair of the pipeline connecting Basse-Terre to Grande Terre completed yesterday, it is the decontamination operation of this pipeline (due to the intervention in the aquatic environment in the mangrove, Editor's note), which is is completed this afternoon,” said the prefect on Sunday evening in a press release.
The authorities are planning a “return of water to Goyave (…) during the night”, according to the same source.
#water #repairs #Guadeloupe
Back in pictures of the day's repairs:
The hydraulic cutter and the divers made it possible to free the deformed cast iron.
The second team began to install the stainless steel shell around the damaged pipe pic.twitter.com/KzFPJKhfLT
— Prefect of Guadeloupe (@Prefet971) March 23, 2024
On the other hand, two municipalities in Grande Terre - Les Abymes and Le Gosier, bringing together more than 80,000 inhabitants - were still strongly impacted on Sunday evening.
Schools will remain closed in Gosier on Monday, as well as around ten establishments in Abymes, indicated the town halls of the two municipalities.
“Sufficient pressure should be reached on the morning of Monday March 25, with a view to a gradual return of water to these two municipalities on Monday afternoon,” assured the prefect.
“Aggravated destruction and endangering the lives of others”
The main outage impacting the archipelago since Tuesday evening results from a rupture in the main pipeline linking Basse-Terre to Grande Terre, "a rupture which is the direct consequence of malicious actions", the prefecture had previously indicated.
Up to 12 municipalities out of 32 suffered “total or partial cuts” in water supply between Tuesday and Friday evening according to the same source, against the backdrop of a strike by agents of the Mixed Union of Water Management and Sanitation of Guadeloupe ( SMGEAG), public management in Guadeloupe.
Judicial investigations were opened for “aggravated destruction and endangering the lives of others,” prosecutors from Pointe-à-Pitre and Basse-Terre said in a joint press release on Saturday, without specifying the nature of the damage.
Guadeloupe is experiencing, due to decades of harmful management and dilapidated networks, water cuts organized by the operator to supply the municipalities of the archipelago in turn.
Since the end of 2021, a single authority has tried to resolve the problems but is experiencing numerous political and financial dysfunctions.