The Hong Kong Water Supplies Department on Monday apologized for the inconvenience caused by a water supply suspension in Tung Chung, which has now been restored following 12 hours of urgent repairs.
At around 10 pm on Sunday night, residents of Tung Chung discovered that their fresh water supply had been cut off due to a pipe leak at the nearby Siu Ho Wan Water Treatment Works. The water supply was restored at 10 am on Monday after overnight repairs were carried out.
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The suspension affected about 120,000 residents as well as shops and restaurants in the district. The department first said it expected the water supply to be restored at 6 am, but this estimate was later revised several times.
At a news conference on Monday at noon, Wong Yan-Lok, director of the Water Supplies Department, apologized for the 12-hour water outage, explaining that the repairs had been more difficult to carry out than was expected as there were multiple leakage points in the pipe.
After the repairs had been completed, further time was needed to wash the 1,200-millimeter-diameter freshwater pipe to ensure it was sufficiently clean for the supply of water, Wong added.
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Wong said the department had arranged for one ship, seven trucks and over 60 tanks to maintain the supply of fresh water to affected residents and businesses.
He said the steel pipe that was broken had been laid in the 1990s. The department originally planned to carry out maintenance late at night to minimize any impact, but the leakage had deteriorated, prompting the department to begin urgent repairs early.
The department is looking into the cause of the leakage and will submit a report to the Development Bureau after the investigation has been completed, Wong added.
