The damaged Musota water pipe bridge, part of which fell into the Kinokawa River, is seen in the background, in the city of Wakayama on Oct. 4, 2021. The prefectural road's Musota Bridge is seen in the foreground. (Mainichi/Tadashi Kako)

       WAKAYAMA -- A major water outage in parts of this west Japan city caused by a water pipe bridge collapse on Oct. 3 has been completely resolved, and tap water is finally drinkable for some 60,000 affected households.

       The Wakayama Municipal Government announced on the night of Oct. 10 that the outage affecting some 138,000 residents in the northern part of the city had been entirely resolved as of around 4 p.m. on the day, and water quality test results showed that tap water was drinkable as of 8 p.m.

       Nevertheless, some managers of housing complexes decided against immediately restoring the supply to each household, according to the city. A city official explained, "We haven't tested the water quality in each household, and so we want people to check if there is anything wrong, such as murkiness." They also urged people to continue to save water, saying, "There is a possibility that the water will become murky again if it is used all at once." If the water again becomes cloudy on a large scale, new tests may be carried out, the official said.

       Part of the Musota water pipe bridge over the Kinokawa River -- the only route to send water to the northern part of the city -- collapsed at around 3:45 p.m. on Oct. 3, causing a large-scale water outage from that evening. The city restored the water supply by temporarily installing a water pipe along the prefectural road's Musota Bridge, which runs parallel to the original pipe bridge. Construction was completed on the night of Oct. 8, and the water supply resumed in sequence from 8:30 a.m. the following day.

       (Japanese original by Satoshi Yamaguchi, Wakayama Bureau)

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