A 15ft long section of a 1200mm diameter water pipe inside the Garden Reach water treatment plant in southwest Kolkata burst and broke away from the supply line disrupting water supply in and around the city on Wednesday morning.
Engineers who were restoring the broken section said that water supply would remain normal on Thursday. The accident happened around 7am.
A senior engineer of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), the custodian of the plant, said that the line burst and broke open the soil and concrete surface above it, such was its impact.
“We are still working on the repairs. We are hoping that the water supply will remain normal from Thursday morning,” said the engineer on Wednesday night.
Another engineer said that supply to the affected line was stopped to enable repairs and the water was diverted through other pipes.
Large areas of Kolkata, including entire Behala and Garden Reach, parts of Jadavpur, Jodhpur Park, Garia, Tollygunge and Kalighat, received lesser than usual water, said another engineer.
Dulal Chandra Das, the chairman of Maheshtala Municipality, said that “several areas under the municipality did not receive any water through the day”.
“Some pockets received some volume of water,” he added. The pipe that burst was laid when the water treatment plant was established about three decades ago, said an engineer.
Engineers said that it was difficult to pin point a reason for the accident immediately but they suspect that any sudden increase in water pressure in that section of the pipeline may have lead to the accident.
