There are still 200 homes without water in west Wales as misery caused by a "freeze-thaw" continues. A week of freezing temperatures meant many water pipes were frozen and while measures were put in place ahead of the expected "rapid thaw" over the weekend, ground movement as the pipes thawed caused a huge increase in burst mains.
A large area of Ceredigion has been affected by the lack of water as well as parts of Pembrokeshire with even some areas of Carmarthenshire reporting having no water. Some residents have said they've been without water since Saturday morning.
A bottle water collection site has been set up in Llandysul and it took residents over an hour to enter the car park where the water was being given out this morning. Residents are being given two packs of six litre bottles each. Nine schools were closed on Monday due to the incident. Get stories like this straight to your inbox with our newsletters.
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In an update, a Welsh Water statement read: "Good progress has been made today restoring supplies and we now have up to 200 properties which remain without water following the freeze-thaw which are proving particularly challenging due to issues identified as the water network has re-pressurised.
"Other supply issues in the area will mainly be linked to the air locks in the system we forewarned customers about which can cause further temporary interruptions to supply. We have teams working around the clock to locate and fix any such issues. For information, some other areas of our operations may be affected by burst mains unrelated to the freeze thaw, which occur on our water network that is nearly 30,000 km long under normal circumstances. Again, we have teams dealing with both of these issues as quickly as possible.
"We continue to have bottled water stations at various locations in the affected areas as a precautionary measure. We will continue to work through the night resolving any remaining issues and continue to use our fleet of water tankers to put water directly into the system. Customers can also help by checking any taps not being used are turned off and if they do have a water supply then only use the water they need. Also, for agricultural customers to check there aren’t any leaks on their external pipes. This will all help the system to refill. We would again like to apologise to customers for the inconvenience caused and thank them for their continued patience."
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