The Water Authority of Fiji (WAF) would like to advise members of the public that the reduced water pressure to the fire hydrants in the Sakoca settlement on Sunday (31/10/21) was due to our Khalsa booster pumps being temporarily disabled as a result of an unplanned power outage caused by the fire at the settlement.
This was confirmed after our team conducted an investigation after receiving reports that the National Fire Authority was unable to access water services from the available fire hydrants, during the recent fire that occurred at the Sakoca Settlement.
Acting WAF Chief Operating Officer, Miteshwar Chand, said that WAF verified that the power outage was in fact a result of the same fire that took place at Sakoca with EFL.
“We found out that the power outage was caused by the same fire, through EFL’s advisory to customers on their Facebook page, and also confirmed this with EFL customer care,” said Mr Chand.
Mr Chand said that at approximately 11.35 am on Sunday, the unplanned power outage occurred, affecting the Khalsa booster pump station which resulted in nil inflow into the Nagatugatu reservoir, impacting water pressure in the area, particularly elevated areas.
“After establishing the pumps were off due to an unplanned power outage, our Mechanical and Electrical team took action to switch on our standby generators as soon as possible,” said Mr Chand.
“While this allowed us to have 3 out of our 5 booster pumps active, inflow into the reservoir was still limited and water levels continued to drop.
The power was restored a little after 2 pm and we switched the power supply for the pump station back over.
”Mr Chand also confirmed that a call was received by the WAF call centre from the National Fire Authority (NFA) at 2 pm seeking assistance on boosting water pressures to assist with the firefighting efforts.
“This was a very tragic and unfortunate series of events and we will be working with the NFA to try and address any communication delays so response times can be improved.”
“We would also like to express our condolences to the families who lost their homes in this unfortunate incident.”