Water Reaches Parts of Safaga and El Quseir Only Every Eight Days, Three Weeks After Summer Ended
Residents of both towns say the gap between pumping cycles has stretched to about eight days, with families hauling jerrycans home by tuk-tuk. The governor had ordered Safaga's intervals cut to five days.
14 October 2026
Water is reaching homes in parts of Safaga and El Quseir only about once every eight days, roughly three weeks after the end of the summer season, Al-Masry Al-Youm reported on Wednesday.
The newspaper said complaints are continuing in the two towns south of Hurghada, where supplies arrive late and the shortfall between what the desalination plants produce and what households consume each day has not closed. Families are storing whatever reaches the taps, or moving water themselves in jerrycans.
Mahmoud El-Amari, a tour guide in El Quseir, told the paper that residents are filling jerrycans at the town's water kiosks and carrying them home by tuk-tuk to cover the minimum they need for drinking and household use. The wait falls hardest on families without large storage tanks, he said. He asked for more water to be allocated to the town, for pumping schedules to be reviewed so the gaps are shorter, and for a published timetable so households know when supplies are due.
In Safaga, residents say the output of the town's desalination plant together with its share of the Qena water line does not cover daily consumption. Ahmed Sayed, a Safaga resident, said intervals reach about eight days in some areas, which forces families to store enough to last until the next pumping cycle.
The Red Sea governor had previously instructed the local unit and the water and sanitation company to cut Safaga's pumping intervals to five days. Residents told the paper they are still waiting to see that in practice. They also asked for water-quality monitoring in the areas with the longest outages, rather than pumping simply resuming, and for quick action on any complaint about a change in the water's colour, smell or appearance.
Hurghada News reported on 10 October that Red Sea towns need roughly 90,000 cubic metres a day more water than they receive, and that five new plants are meant to close that gap. A 10,000-cubic-metre-a-day desalination plant and a new sewage system for Marsa Alam were announced this week.