Villagers outraged as taps produce red water
Nnasaretha Kgamanyane | Thursday February 5, 2015 11:49
A Mmegi news crew that visited the village on Tuesday encountered irate residents who said they had been subjected to the rusty water for sometime.
“Bathong, re tshwere bothata, re noswa metsi a mahibidu,” said Iponeng Moreri of Ratlhomelang ward.
“We have been drinking this red water for over a week now. What angers us is that the Corporation has not addressed this issue.
“We really don’t know what is going on in our village.” Moreri said her children had suffered severe stomach cramps and diarrhoea after drinking the water, adding that boiling the water had proved ineffective.
“I don’t know how to describe the taste of this water. Even the food loses taste when you cook with it. Boiling it does not seem to yield results either,” she said.
Samuel Kemoreilwe of Ntloedibe ward said he was shocked to see taps producing red water when he returned back from his cattle post a few days ago.
“I thought that maybe it was because I had not used the tap regularly. I however became suspicious when the water became darker after a few days. “I decided to boil the water, as I couldn’t afford to buy water from the shops.
“I also advised my neighbours who fetch water from my yard to boil it before drinking. We used it to wash our clothes, but they lost colour and became dull,” he said.
Onyana Matsime of Lekgwapheng ward said they were using the red water for bathing and laundry.
“If this situation continues, we are going to be in trouble. I suspect that the rust can cause serious sickness,” she said.
On Tuesday, Water Utilities Corporation (WUC) officials were busy working on Kedisaletse Mosasarwane’s standpipe.
Mosasarwane said her family had spent the whole weekend hungry because they could not drink or cook with the red water.
“On the first day we drank a little bit of it but completely stopped when it changed colour from red to black. WUC e re sotlile tota,” she said. Villagers believe the colour of the water comes from rusting within the pipes that are feeding the area. While the WUC is understood to be flushing the pipes to remove the rust, officials were unavailable for comment yesterday.