Residents of this small Newfoundland Town who have been without water pressure for three days received word Wednesday that two leaking valves were to be repaired overnight.
Brian Button, the mayor of Channel-Port aux Basques, said work crews had to dig through a metre of frozen earth to reach the valves, both of which were installed in the 1990s.
He said a state of emergency would remain in effect until service was restored.
Two schools and a college campus were closed and a local hospital made arrangements to transfer patients to other hospitals.
About 80 per cent of the residents of the town, located on the province's southwestern tip, were still without water on Tuesday.
The first of the two broken valves was located later that night. The second leak was found Wednesday, forcing the town to send for a replacement in Corner Brook - a two-hour drive away.
By Wednesday afternoon, about 70 per cent of the town had its water pressure restored.
The mayor said he didn't know what cause the valves to rupture.
"We're not certain of what may have busted it up," he said in an interview Wednesday. "What's slowing us down is three feet of frost in the ground."