Water restored in Chile capital after day-long cut

Water has been restored in Chile's capital Santiago after a 24-hour pollution-related outage that affected more than two million people, the water utility said Wednesday.

The cut-off in the supply of drinking water to more than 593,000 homes from early Tuesday was linked to contamination in a key river that supplies the city and forced the closure of several businesses.

The Aguas Andinas water utility announced that all services had been restored as of 5:00 am (0800 GMT).

Aguas Andinas had earlier said a landslide in the Maipo river, the city's main source of water, had fouled the company's processing plants.

Tanker-trucks distributed water in several neighborhoods, while many supermarkets and stores saw their shelves emptied of bottled water.

The city has a population of about five million people.

(c) 2013 AFP