Northern Territory Health has issued an urgent boil water alert for Greater Darwin and Palmerston after heavy flooding at the Darwin River Dam compromised the region’s primary supply.
Northern Territory Health has warned residents to use only bottled or boiled water for drinking, food preparation, baby formula and brushing teeth until further notice.
The government also told residents to “conserve the water supply” for those uses only.
The dam spillway has been overflowing since the New Year due to a heavy wet season, with further torrential rain pushing water levels to more than 110 per cent capacity.
Floodwaters inundated a critical pump station, which provides about 85 per cent of the Top End’s supply, prompting urgent repair work as crews attempt to restore operations.
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The Northern Territory government urged Darwin residents to cut water use while the repair works were ongoing.
“Simple steps such as shorter showers, turning off your taps and switching off your irrigation can all help,” Power and Water Darwin said in a statement.
“To help partially meet demand, we will be activating borefields at McMinns and Howard East.
But they cannot meet the full shortfall while the dam is offline.
“So we are asking Darwin residents to please reduce the amount of water you use.
“We have a team of experts working to fix the dam as quickly as is safely possible and thank Territorians for pulling together.”
Northern Territory Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro said the scale of the flooding across the Top End had been confronting for emergency responders and affected communities.
“Emotion just pours out of you. It’s been so heartbreaking,” Ms Finocchiaro told Sky News.
She said communities hardest hit by the disaster, including Katherine, had shown remarkable resilience despite the devastation.
“The Katherine community is just so beautiful and resilient.”
Ms Finocchiaro also moved to reassure Darwin residents that authorities were working quickly to restore the damaged infrastructure while urging the public to reduce their water usage.
“We don’t want people to panic. This is not a panic situation,” she said.
“What we’re asking is that people lower their usage where they don’t need to … what this is really about is buying the tradies time to get that gear up and running again.”
She said some of the largest water users connected to the dam catchment had already been asked to significantly cut their consumption.
“There are a number of really large water users for that catchment, and so they’ve been asked to significantly reduce their water usage. We’re asking Territorians to just be conscious – no long showers right now.”
Power and Water said the flooding had pushed the dam to unprecedented levels.
“This is an unprecedented situation, and we have never seen this volume of water in the dam before,” the utility said.
“Our crews are working to get the dam operational again using generators but, in the meantime, we need the Darwin community to reduce their water use.”
The crisis comes as Katherine and surrounding regions continue to face widespread flooding, with hundreds of homes inundated and key roads cut off.
Darwin’s hospital is closed down and the town centre is still largely inaccessible due to water covering major roads.
Ms Finocchiaro said several remote communities had been evacuated as authorities responded to the growing disaster.
“We’ve just come off the back of Alice Springs flooding and now we’ve evacuated three remote communities,” she said.
“We have about 1,000 people in shelters as we speak. For our population that is huge.”
She said the Northern Territory government had activated disaster relief funding to support residents impacted by the flooding.
“We’ve activated the disaster relief funding that’s in partnership with the federal government…so people from lunchtime today will be able to get access to immediate payments to try and support them to restock fridges and rebuild their lives.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also urged residents across the Northern Territory to remain alert as heavy rain continues.
“A large monsoon trough remains over the Top End of the NT and it’s impacting communities across the region,” he said.
“People in these regions should prioritise their safety following flood advice and stay aware of their surroundings.”