The continuous water crisis in several districts of Madina for two weeks has raised the price of a tanker truck of water to SR200 from the SR100 before the crisis, Okaz said Thursday. The residents of Al-Areedh district located on King Abdul Aziz Street 1.5 kilometers east of the Prophet's Mosque complained of the shortage of water. They said that some tanker truck owners are exploiting the crisis by raising the prices by 100%. The Saudi nationals Owaidha Al-Muttairi, Saleh Al-Sahli and Mu'tiq Fayiz said complaints are being filed at the Directorate of Water every day because of high water prices. They called for fixing the prices and penalizing price gougers. They drew attention to the fact that some districts have water throughout the year and called for equal treatment without having to be subjected to unfair pricing by water truck owners. The Directorate of Water is in the process of carrying out projects totaling in SR1.3 billion which are set to fix the problem of water truck owners boosting their prices. The plans include constructing strategic water tanks and purifying water wells to provide water to the surrounding areas, increasing supply. Meanwhile, Al-Madina Arabic daily said the water crisis is affecting 50 districts of Taif, as water supply has been cut off from these districts for the fourth consecutive week without a glimmer of hope that the crisis would end. Several residents of Taif said they were harmed by the continuing lack of water in the region, which has recurred seasonally around the Ramadan and Haj periods. They lamented that there are families who cannot afford to purchase a truck of water and wait for weeks to get water from the distribution points. Some resort to carrying several empty jerry cans to mosques and taking water from there. In another development, the water crisis that a number of areas in the Asir Region are witnessing and Abha has forced the citizens to fill plastic containers with water from the small taps at water distribution stations instead of waiting for at least five days to get a water tanker, Al-Watan said Thursday. Since Wednesday, crowds of people have gathered around public water distribution points which have been shut off from distributing water. Despite the water station working around the clock the demand is greater than the supply, officials said. Meanwhile, Ahmed Al-Taihani, Director General of Desalination in the southern region, said that the partial dysfunction in one of the main pumps of Al-Shaqeeq Desalination Station has been repaired and pumping the normal quantities to Asir Region has been resumed. He said 100,000 tons of water was pumped on Tuesday but was consumed solely by the Asir Region. He also said efforts are being made to raise the water level in the four Asir water tanks. With the pumping of these quantities of water, Al-Taihani expects the situation to return to normal by next week. – Okaz __
