Hasakah, July 23 (SANA)Syria’s Alouk water station in the country’s northeast resumed operations on Wednesday after nearly seven years of disruption, restoring drinking water supplies to more than 500,000 people inHasakah province, the Ministry of Energy said.

Energy MinisterMohammad al-Bashir and Hasakah GovernorNour al-Din Ahmadattended the official reopening of the facility, where water pumping to the distribution network began.

Farhan al-Owais, director of Hasakah’s General Company forDrinking Waterand Sanitation, said the Alouk station is the main source of drinking water for Hasakah city, Tal Tamr, western rural Hasakah and parts of the surrounding countryside.

He said the station is operating at an initial capacity of more than 50%, with 19 of its 34 wells and six of its 12 horizontal pumps currently in service, providing water to more than half a million residents.

Al-Owais said maintenance and rehabilitation work will continue through the end of the year to restore the station to full operating capacity. Efforts also include repairing secondary pumping networks and infrastructure at the Aziziyah pumping station in Hasakah.

Residents welcomed the return of running water after years of relying on privately suppliedwater tankers,which they said were expensive and often failed to provide adequately treated drinking water.

They called on authorities to bring the remaining wells into service as quickly as possible to increase water supplies, improve distribution hours and ensure water reaches neighborhoods at the end of the network, particularly during the summer when demand is highest.

Earlier on Wednesday, al-Bashir officially launched the station’s trial operations, saying it had resumed production at more than half of its design capacity, with theremaining rehabilitation workto be completed in stages until the facility reaches full output.