MADINAH, 27 July 2005 — Acute water shortage in Madinah has caused chaos among citizens and strongly activated the black market. The prices of a tanker of water increased sharply and in some cases more than tripled from SR120 to SR400.

The shortage is a repeat of the problem that faces Madinah and many other cities in the Kingdom during summer.

The problem peaked two days ago when the temperatures reached more than 50 degrees Celsius. Residents who were not connected to the water mains had to turn to the blackmarket and suffer the sharp increase in prices.

The hardest hit area was that of Al-Iskan — where more than 10,000 people live — Al-Harra Al-Gharbiya and Al-Harra Al-Sharqiya neighborhoods and the central area where there is a high concentration of Umrah visitors.

“There is nothing harder than facing people staying in my hotel who are angry because there is no water,” said one hotel owner. “This has affected us and caused us embarrassment. We tell them that the problem is not ours and that the whole area is affected by it. It is hard to explain it to them. We have some families that have reserved rooms with us for one and two weeks. If the problem is not fixed, we will face huge financial losses.”

Another hotel owner said the problem hit the central area hard. He said the water he received from the network is not sufficient. “We turn to the blackmarket for water tankers and sometimes we pay up to SR500.”

He said the problem was exacerbated because of large number of visitors from Asia and Gulf countries. “We sometimes buy more than three water tankers a day and suffer the losses. The water authority must solve the problem quickly.”

Abdul Aziz B., resident in Al-Harra Al-Gharbiya, said he did not go to work because he had to spend most of his day trying to get a water tanker delivery to his house. He said when he did not get water from the water mains, he had to buy it from the blackmarket at any price.

Officials at the water authority in Madinah said the official price of a water tanker has not increased and that they are not responsible for the blackmarketeering. They attribute the water crises to a problem in the distribution network.