{"id":531148,"date":"2026-03-10T13:49:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T13:49:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/531148\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T13:49:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T13:49:13","slug":"darwin-residents-told-to-boil-water-after-warnings-to-decrease-use-as-main-dam-overflows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/531148\/","title":{"rendered":"Darwin residents told to boil water after warnings to ‘decrease use’ as main dam overflows"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The government also told residents to “conserve the water supply” for those uses only.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Floodwaters inundated a critical pump station, which provides about 85 per cent of the Top End\u2019s supply, prompting urgent repair work as crews attempt to restore operations.<\/p>\n

Watch Sky News Weather for all the latest updates\"Sky<\/p>\n

The Northern Territory government urged Darwin residents to cut water use while the repair works were ongoing.<\/p>\n

\u201cSimple steps such as shorter showers, turning off your taps and switching off your irrigation can all help,\u201d Power and Water Darwin said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo help partially meet demand, we will be activating borefields at McMinns and Howard East.<\/p>\n

But they cannot meet the full shortfall while the dam is offline.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we are asking Darwin residents to please reduce the amount of water you use.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a team of experts working to fix the dam as quickly as is safely possible and thank Territorians for pulling together.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cEmotion just pours out of you. It\u2019s been so heartbreaking,\u201d Ms Finocchiaro told Sky News.<\/p>\n

She said communities hardest hit by the disaster, including Katherine, had shown remarkable resilience despite the devastation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Katherine community is just so beautiful and resilient.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want people to panic. This is not a panic situation,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re asking is that people lower their usage where they don\u2019t need to \u2026 what this is really about is buying the tradies time to get that gear up and running again.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said some of the largest water users connected to the dam catchment had already been asked to significantly cut their consumption.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a number of really large water users for that catchment, and so they\u2019ve been asked to significantly reduce their water usage. We\u2019re asking Territorians to just be conscious – no long showers right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Power and Water said the flooding had pushed the dam to unprecedented levels.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an unprecedented situation, and we have never seen this volume of water in the dam before,\u201d the utility said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

The crisis comes as Katherine and surrounding regions continue to face widespread flooding, with hundreds of homes inundated and key roads cut off.<\/p>\n

Darwin\u2019s hospital is closed down and the town centre is still largely inaccessible due to water covering major roads.<\/p>\n

Ms Finocchiaro said several remote communities had been evacuated as authorities responded to the growing disaster.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve just come off the back of Alice Springs flooding and now we\u2019ve evacuated three remote communities,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have about 1,000 people in shelters as we speak. For our population that is huge.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Monsoon<\/p>\n

She said the Northern Territory government had activated disaster relief funding to support residents impacted by the flooding.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve activated the disaster relief funding that\u2019s in partnership with the federal government\u2026so 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also urged residents across the Northern Territory to remain alert as heavy rain continues.<\/p>\n

\u201cA large monsoon trough remains over the Top End of the NT and it\u2019s impacting communities across the region,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople in these regions should prioritise their safety following flood advice and stay aware of their surroundings.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Northern Territory Health has issued an urgent boil water alert for Greater Darwin and Palmerston after heavy flooding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":531149,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[64,63,35265,263804,75,30376,1098,128,89683,1192],"class_list":["post-531148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-chief-minister","tag-darwn","tag-environment","tag-lia-finocchiaro","tag-nt","tag-science","tag-water-supply","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=531148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/531149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}