The first water pipes got frozen in Chisinau and the water supplier blames the consumers for this. SA “Apa-Canal Chisinau” technical production vice director Vitalie Midari has told Info-Prim Neo that all the consumers were informed about possible dangers of freezing and preventive measures were to be taken in the warm period. “Last year the soil got frozen up to 1 meter, but this year the layer that froze is several centimeters only and if the pipes iced up again, this shows that certain requirements weren’t respected,” he said. Vitalie Midari also said that every consumer was to thermally insulate the branch pipes in autumn or to lay them deeper if they were situated at a shallow depth. “Apa-Canal Chisinau” provided technical support on reconnection. “If the consumers re-laid the pipe deeper, we reconnected them free of charge,” he stated. Where the branch pipes freeze up, the consumers will sustain the consequences themselves, including for possible leakages that can appear in spring, when water thaws. According to “Apa-Canal Chisinau”, over 2,000 branch pipes got frozen in the municipality of Chisinau last winter. In spring they caused a large number of leakages.