The failure of a borehole motor in the Umbría del Acebuchal, in Torrox, has left around 400 rural homes, agricultural operations, and tourist businesses without water since July 12. The supply will be restored during the early hours of this Thursday.
Around 400 rural homes in the Málaga municipalities of Frigiliana and Torrox, along with agricultural operations, tourist accommodations, and hospitality establishments, will regain their water supply during the early hours of this Thursday. The failure of the borehole motor, which occurred on July 12, has left this area of Axarquía without supply for eleven days.
The faulty motor is installed at a depth of 244 meters, in the area of Umbría del Acebuchal, within the municipality of Torrox. The complexity of the repair has necessitated the mobilization of heavy machinery, a large-capacity crane truck, and specialized workers to extract the faulty equipment and install a new one.
The incident has affected around 300 hectares of crops, mainly mangoes and avocados, as well as horticultural operations, gardens, and other agricultural uses. The outage occurred in the middle of the summer campaign, one of the most critical times for fruit development. Numerous farmers report that the trees were in the full fruit swelling phase, leading to the dropping of mangoes and avocados and putting young specimens at risk due to the lack of irrigation for nearly two weeks.
The situation has also impacted rural homes, tourist complexes, and restaurants in the area. During these days, there has been a constant presence of tanker trucks supplying water to storage tanks, while some owners report that several clients opted to leave the accommodations and move to hotels due to the lack of supply.
One affected resident, Pablo Rojo, warned that losses could amount to "hundreds of thousands of euros," when adding up agricultural damages and cancellations in the tourism sector. Meanwhile, another system user, José Daniel Cano, expressed his dissatisfaction with the duration of the outage and called for clarification on who will bear the costs and damages incurred.
The community responsible for the supply initially reported that the outage was due to a technical fault in the intake and later explained the difficulties encountered in hiring the necessary machinery to replace the motor, given the depth at which it is installed.
Repair work began early Wednesday morning, with an expected duration of about 16 hours. Once the new motor is installed, the progressive filling of the entire network will begin to restore supply to the affected homes and operations. Additionally, those who still have water reserves in large tanks have been asked to delay their filling to ensure that the service reaches the areas with the greatest need first.
If no further setbacks occur, the supply will be fully restored during the early hours of this Thursday, bringing an end to eleven days of an incident that has directly affected hundreds of families, farmers, and business owners in Frigiliana and Torrox. Those affected are now calling for an assessment of the damages and the adoption of measures to prevent a similar failure from leaving this area of Axarquía without water for so many days again.
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