Broken well motor leaves 400 homes and farms in Axarquía without water for 11 days

Water

A technical breakdown between Frigiliana and Torrox has hit local tourism and threatened hundreds of hectares of subtropical crops during peak summer

Eugenio Cabezas

Around 400 rural homes, farms, holiday homes and restaurants situated between Frigiliana and Torrox in the Axarquía area of Malaga province have been without a ... water supply for eleven days due to a fault with the motor of the Agrofisa S.A. subtropical fruit association's well. The problem began on Sunday 12 July and is expected to be fully resolved on Thursday 23 July.

The faulty motor is located at a depth of 244 metres, in the area of Umbría del Acebuchal, within the municipality of Torrox. The complexity of the installation has made it necessary to hire heavy machinery, a crane and specialist operatives to remove the unit and install a new one.

Agrofisa has around 400 members and supplies some 300 hectares of mainly subtropical crops including mangoes and avocados, as well as vegetables, ornamental flowers and gardens belonging to around 400 homes and rural complexes. Several holiday homes, bars and restaurants also rely on this network.

The disruption is already affecting some 300 hectares of crops and 400 rural homes, holiday homes and restaurants in Frigiliana and Torrox

The water cut has occurred in the middle of summer, coinciding with very high temperatures and a particularly critical stage for crops, as well as right in the middle of the peak season for rural holiday rentals. Affected owners say that the trees were in the midst of fruit ripening and that the prolonged lack of irrigation has caused mangoes and avocados to fall, as well as putting young trees at risk.

The consequences have also been felt in the tourism sector. Those affected have reported a constant stream of water trucks filling up tanks and supplying holiday homes during the high season. Some guests are said to have left their accommodation to move to hotels, although there is as yet no official estimate of the financial losses.

“Hundreds of thousands of euros”

One of the affected residents, Pablo Rojo, has taken to social media to claim that the damage could run to “hundreds of thousands of euros”, due to both agricultural losses and cancelled tourist bookings. “The trees, which are in the middle of their ripening phase, have dropped their fruit and the survival of many of them is now at risk,” he stated in his post, as reported by SUR.

Another member, José Daniel Cano, has criticised the length of the outage and has called for a decision on who should bear the resulting costs. “It’s incomprehensible that there isn’t a crane to remove that engine or the pipes,” he wrote on his social media on Wednesday 22 July, after eleven days without a water supply and amid growing discontent amongst users.

Agrofisa S.A. initially reported that the disruption was due to a technical fault in the water intake system. On 16 July, it reported that the recovery lorry would arrive during the following week and, a day later, confirmed that the engine would be replaced on Wednesday 22 July following “numerous enquiries and several attempts to engage” specialist companies.

Work began at 8am on Wednesday 22 July and was expected to take around 16 hours. The growers' association explained that, once the new motor had been fitted, the system would be filled overnight in order to gradually restore service to the affected farms and homes. Agrofisa S.A. has asked members who still have reserves in large tanks not to fill them up immediately, so that water can reach those in the most urgent need first.

The water supply was expected to return to normal in the early hours of Thursday morning, while those affected are calling for an assessment of the damage and measures to prevent another breakdown from leaving the area without water for so many days. Other residents interviewed by SUR have complained that in previous years, when similar faults have occurred with the borehole motor, repairs have never taken more than seven days.

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