FUENGIROLA – Since Sunday, the public water company Acosol, which supplies water to the western municipalities of the Costa del Sol, has been working on solving a fault in a large pipeline. Residents of large parts of Mijas and Fuengirola have been without water since then.
Residents have either had no water whatsoever or just an occasional very weak trickle. Acosol writes on the website: ‘This supply stoppage is due to the outage that occurred yesterday [Sunday] in the old Costa de Sol pipeline. (…) Acosol SA, informs that the repair work on the breakage of the supply line is continuing’. As a result, the areas of Polarsol, Las Lagunas de Mijas, the marina of Fuengirola, part of the Los Boliches district, and Torreblanca and Carvajal have had nothing since the end of the day on Sunday.
First of all, there was at times some water in all areas. However, only small streams from the tap due to the loss of pressure, which occasionally also fell completely dry. It was then reported there would be no water at all between 6.00 pm Monday afternoon and 6.00 am Tuesday. This forecast turned out to be optimistic, because by 11.30 pm on Tuesday, the outage had still not been resolved.
Users and urbanisations are requested by Acosol to cancel public and private garden irrigation, street cleaning and other water uses in order to conserve water in the basins until full service is restored.
Acosol says it apologises in advance to the affected residents for the inconvenience caused by the work.
Angry citizens
The reactions on Twitter show not every resident is equally understanding of this reason for the lack of water. Users indicate they do not understand how they can be cut off from a basic provision and basic necessities for so long.
Carlos Pérez (@Popcarlos) writes: I think a plan B should be required from the supply company while the repair is being made. It is a basic necessity of life. WC, showers. We already have used 50 litres of bottled water.
Soy un botigo vacunado (@CaosAzucarado) expresses himself a little more directly: Well, I’M GOING TO SHIT ON EVERYTHING, more specifically @AcosolSA @gestagua en@fuengirola because I haven’t been able to shower for two days. Because when I went to work there was no water and I just got home and it’s still locked.
Scott in Spain (@Scottyboy1982) tweeted: 8 hours without water with an 18 month old and a 12 year old daughter!! Please explain to me, how should we clean, cook and drink without water? My daughter was not even allowed to use the toilet at school all day. An absolute disaster at the fault of everyone who runs the city!
@OscarLausada is a little more polite: Good morning… Is there anything known about the outage where we have been without water since 5.00 pm yesterday? You know….for hygiene and stuff!!!
The last tweet from @AcosolSA is from 11 hours earlier (11.55 am) on Tuesday. “We are working against the clock to fix the failure of the old Costa del Sol pipeline.”
