Sharjah: Water tankers are providing limited relief to tenants of a Sharjah building complex hit by week-long water cuts.
Buildings A and B of Al Qadisia Towers on Al Nahda Street have little or no water, forcing tenants to buy drinking water bottles for bathing, cooking, washing and cleaning, they said.
Water tankers have been sent by authorities but tenants said the supplied water doesn’t last long as tenants keep taps running to store water in buckets and bottles. The tankers recharge the buildings’ water tanks and the supply resumes temporarily, tenants said, before taps run dry again.
When Gulf News visited the building complex on Sunday morning, the reason behind the disruptions was not immediately clear. A notice from the building management says “the interruption is due to construction of pipeline for Sewa [Sharjah Electricity and Water Authority]”. A person who works for the building management said, “Everything is OK from our side; Sewa is trying to find the problem and fix it.”
A Sewa official put the blame on the building saying that Sewa had completed its checks regarding the situation and found that the issue was related to the ‘under-performance’ of the water pumping system at the building complex. He added that tenants facing issues were always welcome to call the Sewa hotline number 991 for assistance.
Tenants meanwhile have been forced to improvise to meet their daily needs. An Indian tenant said he used the toilets attached to a mosque compound and took a shower in his gym.
“The worst part is being kept in the dark. No one is telling us what the problem is, who will fix it and when,” said Mohammad Rizwan.
“We are buying five-gallon water bottles — five to seven of them every day — to meet our basic needs. We are putting that water in our toilets. We don’t know beforehand when the tankers come, and when they do, everyone rushes to fill up buckets,” Rizwan said.
Tenants added that they visited the Sewa main office on Saturday and were told tankers would be sent until Sewa determined the cause of the problem.
Shamseer, another Indian tenant, said: “No one from Sewa or the building management is in a position to tell us exactly what’s going on. All I heard was there is not enough pressure to pump the water to the taps. We’re going old school — using mugs and buckets to bathe. There’s no pressure in the shower.”
He said he spends Dh8 per five-gallon water bottle, of which his family needs around seven a day. “Some families need more and spend more. It’s a very frustrating situation.”
Shashank, also from India, said many tenants had formed a WhatsApp group to share news and grievances. “The area manager from Sewa was apparently not informed about the issue until Saturday,” he said.
A Filipino tenant, who did not wish to be named, said: “We get some water only at night or early in the morning. It’s not enough. We are surviving on bottled water from the supermarket.”
