JEDDAH: Five districts of Jeddah suffered from a shortage of water for the third day in a row on Sunday, after a technical problem temporarily interrupted water pumping, according to the National Water Company.

Residents of the districts of Al-Rehab, Moshrifa, Al-Marwa, large parts of Al-Bawadi and Al-Nozha say their water tanks have been short of water since the beginning of last week, and limited water supplies were being pumped by mid-week, only to be cut off entirely two days ago.

To address the problem, many residents have been forced to go to distribution stations to obtain water trucks after waiting for hours for trucks requested through the company’s toll-free phone.

Bandar Al-Mosfir, a resident of Moshrifa district, said stations saw large crowds at the end of last week, as many residents were too inpatient to wait for trucks available through the mechanism put in place by the company.

According to Sultan Al-Harbi, phone requests have solved many of the problems caused by large crowds at distribution stations, but delays in trucks reaching homes on request have pushed them to ask the company to increase the number of trucks, increase service quality, and improve response time to phone calls.

For his part, an official with the water company attributed delays to a temporary technical problem in the pumping process, but said the company has addressed the problem and resumed pumping to affected districts.

He said the toll-free number is active and tankers are available as per demand, while delays may be attributed to increased demand as the service covers all neighborhoods, but that the waiting period does not exceed seven hours.