{"id":563626,"date":"2026-08-09T09:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T09:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/563626\/"},"modified":"2026-08-09T09:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T09:26:10","slug":"ohakune-residents-told-to-conserve-water-after-major-pipe-breaks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/563626\/","title":{"rendered":"Ohakune residents told to conserve water after major pipe breaks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ohakune residents are being asked to conserve water after a recent earthquake<\/a> damaged a major underground water pipeline, significantly reducing the town’s water supply.<\/p>\n

Ruapehu District Council said on Sunday morning it did not expect water supplies to be restored until about 5pm on Monday.<\/p>\n

“Water may start to flow before then but it will not be potable As a precaution boil any tap water until further notice,” it said in a Facebook post. <\/p>\n

The disruption followed damage caused by last month’s magnitude 5.9 earthquake near Taumarunui<\/a>, which caused a major break in the underground raw water pipeline supplying Ohakune’s Water Treatment Plant.<\/p>\n

Ruapehu District Council said because the damaged pipe was underground, the break took time to become apparent and was difficult to repair. <\/p>\n

“Repairs are now complete. However, with large numbers of people in town, the water reservoir has dropped to just 12%. <\/p>\n

“The treatment plant is struggling to rebuild reservoir levels while meeting current demand, creating a risk that Ohakune could run out of water.” <\/p>\n

Residents and visitors had been asked to avoid all non-essential water use and to not flush household toilets as reservoir levels recovered. <\/p>\n

Emergency drinking water would be available from a tanker outside the council’s office on Ayr St, with additional water collection points established around the township. <\/p>\n

The council asked people to keep empty five-litre bottles and refill them from the tanker where possible. <\/p>\n

Emergency port-a-loos had also been installed at several locations across Ohakune.<\/p>\n

“Please continue to conserve water and only take what you reasonably require so supplies remain available to those who need them,” the council said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ohakune residents are being asked to conserve water after a recent earthquake damaged a major underground water pipeline,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,31044,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-563626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-manawatu-wanganui","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}