The Water Authority of Fiji has verified that the reduced water pressure to the fire hydrants in the Sakoca Settlement last Sunday was a result of a power outage attributed to the same fire that destroyed five homes .
The power outage had temporarily disabled the authority’s Khalsa booster pumps.
Acting WAF chief operating officer Miteshwar Chand said they had managed to have this confirmed following their team’s investigation after receiving reports that the National Fire Authority was unable to access water services from the available fire hydrants during the recent fire that occurred at the Sakoca Settlement.
“We found out that the power outage was caused by the same fire, through EFL’s advisory to customers on their Facebook page, and also confirmed this with EFL customer care,” Mr Chand said in a statement.
He said at approximately 11.35am last Sunday, the unplanned power outage occurred and affected the Khalsa booster pump station, which resulted in nil inflow into the Nagatugatu reservoir, impacting water pressure in the area, particularly elevated areas.
“After establishing the pumps were off due to an unplanned power outage, our mechanical and electrical team took action to switch on our standby generators as soon as possible.
“While this allowed us to have three out of our five booster pumps active, inflow into the reservoir was still limited and water levels continued to drop. The power was restored a little after 2pm and we switched the power supply for the pump station back over.”
He said the WAF call centre had also received a call from the NFA at 2pm seeking assistance on boosting water pressures to assist with the firefighting efforts.
“This was a very tragic and unfortunate series of events and we will be working with the NFA to try and address any communication delays so response times can be improved.
“We would also like to express our condolences to the families who lost their homes in this unfortunate incident.”
