SINGAPORE : Singapore will airfreight 3,000 litres of potable
water to the Maldives on Friday morning, as part of Singapore's
tsunami relief package for the island.
The PUB will also be shipping its portable desalination plant over
to help turn contaminated underground water to drinking
water.
Some 10 PUB staff were kept busy packing water into extra strong
plastic bags, each capable of containing 10 1-litre bottles of
water.
Tony Soh, Deputy Director, Water Supply, PUB, said, "PUB has an
emergency water supply plan, so as part of the plan, we already
have got these water bags ready so that we can move out any time
when an emergency like this arises."
These bags have been specially designed.
The snout only needs to be cut, before the clean water can be used
for drinking or cooking.
PUB has done tests on these plastic bags, and they are good for use
for at least three months.
While PUB could have provided more water, it was limited by
available cargo space onboard passenger flight SQ452 to the
Maldives.
And so, it is sending over a portable desalination plant.
Costing some S$600,000, the portable plant was built a year ago by
Keppel Engineering for PUB to conduct a nine-month study on the
desalination process.
PUB says the plant can produce up to 240,000 litres of drinking
water for about one third of the population on the Maldives islands
daily.
Harry Seah, Director, Technology Office, PUB, said, "We heard that
in Maldives, the ground water, which is their only source of water,
has been contaminated with sea water.
"So the plant that we have here has reverse osmosis, so this
reverse osmosis will remove the salts from the water that's
contaminated by the sea, so that we can convert it into drinking
water."
Keppel Engineering will be sending about 10 staff to install the
plant.
The company expects to produce drinking water within two weeks upon
arrival.
Wong Khai Theen, General Manager, Keppel Engineering, said, "We
intend to dispatch our men this weekend to the Maldives, to hook up
the whole system, test and commission the plant, operate and
maintain it until the Maldives authorities are able to take over
the operation and maintenance of the plant."
Keppel Engineering is looking at building another water
purification plant capable of producing 600,000 litres of drinking
water a day, over the next three weeks, to be sent to Indonesia if
there is a need.
The PUB is also looking at providing two more desalination plants
to the Maldives. - CNA
