Panic buying sparks drinking water shortage in Muscat

Muscat: Panic buying and increase in consumption due to peak summer has created a 'false water shortage' in Muscat for the last three days.

To make matters worse the reservoir supplying water to some of the districts in Muscat has also hit bottom slowing down distribution to localities in higher areas.

"With the summer peaking and temperatures going so high consumption has increased therefore for a couple of days water pressure was slightly lower in some of the uphill areas," an official of the Water Department told Gulf News on condition of anonymity.

He added that reservoir was filled up again and water supply is almost normal. The areas in Ruwi, Wadi Kabir and Muttrah suffered due to low pressure but the official denied there was any shortage of water.

Three days

On the other hand supermarket shelves of five-litre have been empty since Saturday. "For three days I visited more than half-dozen supermarkets in search of five-gallon mineral water bottles but returned empty handed," Dr Manali Shah, an Ophthalmologist with a government hospital, told Gulf News. "I only get time for supermarket visits in the evening to buy water as I am tied up with the hospital duty in the morning," she said.

"We stock up hypermarkets in the morning and last couple of days water used to get over within hours," Vijay Chopra, Deputy Sales and Marketing Manager with National Mineral Waters Company told Gulf News on Monday.

He said as such there was no shortage but panic buying following news in Gulf News about impending storm emptied supermarket shelves. "They [supermarkets] have limited storage space so the daily supply was getting over faster and people were finding shelves empty in the evening," he said.

Gulf News also toured at least half-a-dozen supermarkets on Sunday evening but five-gallon water bottles were out of stock.

"The unusually higher temperatures in recent weeks has soared consumption of water," believes a senior sales executive with the UAE-based mineral water company, who preferred not to go on record.

"We have door-to-door supply and demand for five-gallon bottles in recent weeks has gone up almost double and we struggle to cope with the increasing demand as a vehicle can only take certain number of bottle-load," he added.

He also agreed that panic buying following reports about possibility of a storm like last year's cyclone Gonu made matters worse.

"Hopefully, things would ease as there's no sign of storm," he wished.