A water pipe burst in Simon’s Town on Saturday 30 April caused a major water outage for more than six days, affecting residents and schools in the area.

Residents had to make use of water trucks stationed at the Simon’s Town Railway Station and King George Road while Simon’s Town school used water from its Jojo tanks to flush toilets and learners took their own drinking water to school.

On Wednesday 4 May Zahid Badroodien, Mayco member for water and sanitation, said a secondary leak was discovered after initial repairs.

“The City’s water and sanitation team has completed the initial repairs to the 375 mm water pipe supplying Simon’s Town and surrounds, but found a secondary leak at a coupling joint further up the line when testing the system. The teams are working on 24-hour shifts since 30 April to do emergency repairs in difficult, steep terrain.”

Because of the terrain, the team used large concrete volumes to settle the newly installed pipeline to reduce underground movement of the pipes, he added.

“Pipe joints are sensitive to movement and shifting ground can cause leaks when enough force is applied. The department charged the line with water to allow the newly installed pipe to settle further, and discovered a leak at a coupling joint. The team is working on the newly identified leak.”

Simon’s Town school closed early on Tuesday 3 May due to the water shortage. The school had no drinking water and no water to flush toilets.

Western Cape Education Department (WCED) spokesperson Unathi Booi said the school has since put a contingency plan in place.

“I can confirm that the school closed earlier yesterday (Tuesday) as there was no water. The school’s Jojo tanks were filled. While the school has provided the learners with drinking water today (Wednesday), the school also requested parents to assist by sending drinking water for their child, in case the school runs out of water.

“The school is liaising with the municipality regarding the situation.”

In a letter addressed to parents acting school principal Lee Hoffman said it was a challenging day due to the water shortage.

“After permission was granted by the head of department for us to close the school at 13:00 today, we immediately communicated that message on all our parent WhatsApp groups.”

Contingency plans at the school included using stored water from its JoJo tanks to fill toilet cisterns.

“The stored water in our JoJo tanks will be used to fill the toilet cisterns for flushing purposes. This will have to be done manually by either carrying the containers from the tanks to the toilets, or by connecting hose pipes to the tanks and run it directly into the cisterns, where possible.

“We will ask the fire and rescue services to replenish our JoJo tanks if these tanks run empty during the day,” said Hoffman.

Meanwhile school learners and staff were encouraged to take their own drinking water to school while the school collected drinking water from tankers supplied by the City.

The biggest business, economic and market news of the day, by Fin24 deputy editor, Ahmed Areff.

Contact the public editor with feedback for our journalists, complaints, queries or suggestions about articles on News24.