Burst water pipe closes Nicosia road for hours

It took a crew of the Nicosia water board several hours on Monday to fix a burst main water pipe that formed a lake at the junction of the two roads where the Cyprus Museum and the House of Representatives are located.

To restore the damage, the crew dug up the asphalt right on the junction of the two roads, while the street was shut from around 4pm to 9.30pm for urgent repairs.

Museum Avenue remained closed to traffic at the junction, while police opened  one lane at the other end of the street at the Markos Drakos roundabout at around 10pm to allow cars that were parked in the street to leave.

In the afternoon, Nicosia Mayor Constantinos Yiorkadjis went to the scene to inspect the damage.

But while the crew was working to restore the damage, there was a second burst pipe in Ayios Andreas, near the central prison. It was not related to the one outside the museum, the head of the city’s water board Nikos Zambakides told the Cyprus Mail.

Both leaks were caused by natural wear and tear of the pipes, Zambakides said.

“It is not uncommon in the summer to have water leaks. Luckily we were able to fix the damage to the big one, and tomorrow morning the crew will start working on the one in Ayios Andreas,” he said.

He added that the bursting of the second pipe would cause a water shortage in Ayios Pavlos and Ayios Andreas areas, near the Central Prison and the municipal public swimming pool. He urged residents of those areas to use water sparingly.

“The crew will get to work early Tuesday morning and I believe by 10am the damage will be fixed,” he said.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.