A prolonged nationwide blackout would see water run out after two days and sewage overflow, according to the Water Services Corporation.

A spokesman told Times of Malta the island’s water production was highly dependent on electricity as was the sewage system.

“The WSC runs on electricity. Without it we would quickly run out of water and also have serious problems with managing our sewage system. It wouldn’t be nice, that’s for sure,” he said.

The majority of Malta’s water comes from the three reverse osmosis plants operated by the WSC which are powered by electricity. Groundwater is used as a secondary source but electricity is required for the filtration process.

Supplying the water to houses would be negatively affected as water would stop flowing through the pressurised underground pipes, making hill-top localities among the first to run dry. This would eventually affect the entire island, the spokesman said.

The island does have an emergency stock of water, which is stored in 24 reservoirs across the island. However, managing them would be a problem.

Sewage is pumped through galleries using the 100 pumping stations scattered across the island.

More in Times of Malta and the e-paper on timesofmalta.com Premium.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.