It's been revealed that two cruise ships filled up with water in Napier just before the city's water crisis.
Nearly one percent of Napier's water was split between the vessels that left on Sunday afternoon, one at around 3pm and the other at around 4pm.
The water shortage began earlier this week after reservoir levels became critically low. The Mayor of Napier blamed the water shortage on excessive use by residents.
"What happens is the reservoirs recharge overnight. Normally we have water usage up until around 8pm and then overnight the reservoirs recharge," Bill Dalton told The AM Show on Tuesday morning.
"On Sunday night they didn't. The reason for that is people put their sprinklers on and left them on all night."
Napier City Council has implemented a level-four restriction, which means that residents should not use sprinklers or hoses for at least the next few days until water levels are stabilised.
Residents are already fuming they were not told about the water shortage until Monday. Napier resident Meredith Prosser told Newshub, "Bill Dalton should only be blaming himself for not letting Napier residents know the water levels were so low."
The council says the water was taken by the cruise ships before it was informed of the reservoir's low levels on Sunday night.
Alarms were raised about the critically low water levels the next morning.
Newshub.
