Several areas falling under the Booty More supply division of the drinking water and sanitation department woke up thirsty on Thursday, following a power snag at the Rukka filtration plant because of a technical glitch in the local transformer.

The facility, which draws water from Rukka (Getalsud) dam and supplies around 37-38 million gallons per day to around 5 lakh residents of Ranchi, could pump only 6.10 million gallons on Wednesday after a power snag tripped four of its motors.

"Power got restored on Wednesday evening, but the snag occurred again at 10.30pm. Once the motors stop, they take time to restart. Though we had water, successive snags hampered supply on Wednesday night," a junior engineer of Rukka plant said.

Executive engineer Prabhat Singh said out of the four motors, three were meant for Booty More division and one for Hatia. "We managed to release some water in Hatia line by starting its motor somehow, but the remaining three motors remained defunct. However, things stabilised on Thursday morning and supply was resumed slowly," he said.

Several households in Kokar, Morabadi, Ratu Road, Upper Bazar, Booty More, BIT area and Railway Colony in Ranchi had to battle water woes on Thursday.

Suman Kumar, a resident of Gautam Green City, had to leave for office without taking a bath.

Ranjan Verma, a market executive and a resident of Ratu Road, had to buy 20 litres of bottled water to meet domestic needs.

"Incessant rains had left half of the locality inundated, leaving muck and garbage in my veranda. The water scarcity compounded my problems. At 11am, I purchased eight gallons from a local vendor and had to waste three gallons to clean the veranda," he said.

In Kokar's Ayodhanagar, residents said power and water woes were at their worst for the last two days. "We heaved a sigh of relief on Thursday morning when the rains stopped, but soon realised the fight was far from being over," he said.

Sunil Kumar, executive engineer of Booty More division, said the situation would improve from Friday.

"Water supply have resumed from Thursday morning itself, but several areas still faced crisis as it wasn't possible to release all channels at one go. By tomorrow, everything can be expected to become normal," he said.