Almost 90% of Tripoli now has water: NTC

Tripoli (AFP)
Sept 8, 2011

Nearly all of Tripoli has regained access to running water after nearly two weeks of shortages, the head of a prime ministerial task force told AFP on Thursday.

"Nearly 90% of Tripoli has water again," Aref al-Nayed said, reporting that engineers had managed to restore the flow from wells in the deep south after an interruption that left four million people in the greater Tripoli area without war.

The United Nations humanitarian coordinator Panos Moumtzis had earlier described the shortages as "serious" and "the most important and urgent and immediate priority" for humanitarian agencies.

Residents of the capital had been without running water as the war forced disruptions to Libya's state-of-the-art system that draws water from underground aquifers deep in the Sahara.

The United Nations and other international actors had said they were importing about 11 million liters of drinking water to stave off an emergency, as engineers raced to get the system back on line.

Nayed, who head the prime minister's stabilization team, said the more than 580 wells linked to the Great Man Made River system were again feeding the city.

"They had to reset the systems manually and before, that was not possible. For security reasons, they could not get to the stations.

"There was no major damage but some equipment was stolen," he said.

Source: Terra Daily.
Link: http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Almost_90_of_Tripoli_now_has_water_NTC_999.html.