Water utility warns: frozen pipes may leak when they thaw

After pipes froze at more than 2,000 addresses in Chisinau during the cold spell earlier this month, the city's water utility ACC is anticipating an even greater problem: many pipes, especially old and corroded ones, may leak or burst when they thaw out, Info-Prim Neo reports. ACC director Constantin Becciev told the City Hall's ordinary meeting on Monday that already 18 major leaks occurred last week alone. And the pipes involved were as large as 30 cm or even 50 cm in diameter. Becciev noted that this is perfectly explainable, considering that temperatures during the cold spell plummeted to as low as -32 degrees Celsius, causing the ground to freeze at a record-breaking depth of 1.5 meter in some areas. Meanwhile, ACC is working to defrost the frozen pipes. “I hope all of them will be unfrozen within a week or two. Priority is given to apartment buildings, schools and kindergartens”. Becciev stated that all these difficulties will impact hard on the utility's budget and additional municipal money will be requested to cope with the situation.