KUANTAN, MALAYSIA: The management of several Cherating hotels and resorts are fuming over an unannounced 24-hour disruption of the water supply over the weekend.

A pipe had burst at Gebeng.

They slammed the water department for not giving them an accurate assessment as to when supply would resume and for not providing water from tankers when the repairs took longer than expected.

The resorts had to turn to the Kemaman Water Department for water tankers, which charged them RM200 per trip.

A staff member at one of the resorts, named Reena, said the water slowed to a trickle on Friday at midnight only to stop at 2am. It was only back at full pressure on Sunday night.

She said they were upset by the response from the water department because Cherating was a major tourist area.

A food stall operator at the Chendor rest and service area, Syarifah Aisyatul Mas Sayed Jaafar, said she had to spend nearly RM5,000 buying bottles of mineral water for her clients.

"We had a lot of customers, including buses ferrying the Malaysian Games athletes to Terengganu. But since we had no clean water we could not conduct our business properly."

Director of the Pahang Water Department Datuk Ismail Mohd Nor said the department did not allocate water tankers to supply hotels and resorts.