JEDDAH, 9 October 2005 — The water crisis in the city went into its third day as a large number of people queued for water tankers at the water distribution center off Tahlia Street.
People were angry because they had to wait in a queue, even at the time when they should have been at home breaking the fast. The crisis has caused the black market to flourish with the price of a water tanker rising from the official price of SR114 to SR250.
Muhammad Baghdadi, supervisor of the water department in the Makkah region, said Jeddah required an additional 200,000 cubic meters daily to solve its water problem.
One Saudi citizen, Khaled Ahmed, said he had been waiting at the water distribution center for 11 hours in order to get a water tanker for his house. Another Saudi, Mohamed Al-Hekami of Al-Safa district, said there had been no water supply to his house for the last three days.
“We sent the guard of our building to the distribution center to get a tanker and his number was 1200,” Hekami said. He urged the authorities to take quick and definitive measures to solve the city’s water bproblem.
