Twenty apartment buildings in Chisinau's Riscani district remained without water after two 300 mm pipes yielded to extreme temperatures on Friday evening. Repair teams have been working at the site for more than 15 hours, the water utility Apa Canal Chisinau said in a press release. Meanwhile, water has been provided to the residents in tanks. Apart from repair works on the pipes, the intervention teams have been trying to connect the buildings to other unaffected pipes. Concomitantly, service vehicles have been deployed to the scene to remove the ice that appeared as a result of the leaks from the road. According to Andrian Cecan, the head of the utility's dispatch center, pipe ruptures were registered at least at 50 addresses from the beginning of the cold wave. Mostly fatigued pipes are affected. He added that the 2009 rise in water and sewer rates enabled the utility to replace 50 out of 1,000 kilometers of pipes that need urgent replacement.