The Taipei Water Department is waiving water bills for three days as compensation to 20,000 households in Taipei and New Taipei City that were supplied with turbid tap water because of a pipe rupture.
The department discovered early on Tuesday morning that people working on a sewage construction in New Taipei City had ruptured a major pipe that supplies 70 percent of the water to the Greater Taipei area, Department Commissioner Chen Chin-hsiang (陳錦祥) said.
In an effort to maintain water supply, the department diverted the water to other pipes, which stirred up sediment in the pipes due to the sudden change in pressure and resulted in murky tap water, Chen said, adding that it was the first time the agency had to deal with water diversion among pipelines.
Chen said the department estimates that the number of households affected by the ruptured pipe was about 20,000, adding that residents in New Taipei City’s Sanchong (三重), Jhonghe (中和) and Yonghe (永和) districts, as well as in Taipei’s Shilin (士林), Beitou (北投), Songshan (松山) and Datong (大同) districts, filed complaints about “yellowish” tap water.
The department would give these households a three-day exemption on water bills to compensate for the inconvenience, he said.
Apartment buildings that have water tanks should hire workers to clean the tanks, with the cost to be covered by the department, he said.
The agency would seek compensation from the contractor for the New Taipei City sewage project for the losses it suffered, he said.
Chen added that water quality in most of the affected areas were back to normal before noon yesterday and work on the ruptured pipe should be finished by 10pm that day.
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