Sinkhole near PNG's capital just one sign of water network crisis

Water PNG has flagged a "major leak" that has created a sinkhole. (Supplied) Decades of underinvestment in Port Moresby's water supply system has left it in a "fragile state" with multiple leaks, documents seen by the ABC say. It means the water infrastructure network supplying a major city with almost 1 million residents is facing the possibility of "imminent failure", documents warn. The PNG government is working with the United Nations and international partners to address the issues. Link copiedShareShare articleA decades-old pipeline supplying water to nearly 1 million people in Papua New Guinea's capital is at risk of collapsing without urgent repairs, threatening to cut off more than half of the city's water supply. Residents are being urged to remain calm while emergency planning is underway to fix segments of the pipeline. It is just one part of an Australian-built water infrastructure network that has been operating under "extreme" and "unsustainable" risk, while the nation's state-owned water utility is effectively insolvent, the ABC can reveal. Port Moresby's population has grown rapidly in recent years, far outstripping the capacity of the city's aging water infrastructure, which was built by Australia in the 1960s before Papua New Guinea gained independence. Documents seen by the ABC say decades of underinvestment in the water supply system has left it in a "fragile state" with multiple leaks, including one jet of water that has become so "powerful" it has created a sinkhole. Documents say one major leak has created a large "flooded zone" around a sinkhole. (ABC News) A major failure in the system could create a public health and security emergency in Port Moresby and damage the country's economy, the documents warn. The PNG government is working with the United Nations and international partners, including Australia, to address the issues. James Young, CEO of the public water utility, Water PNG, said the disruptions caused by emergency repairs to the failing pipeline were unfortunate, but necessary. "A planned temporary partial shutdown of this pipeline will be required, in line with engineering assessments and community consultation," he said. "Measures will be in place to minimise interruption while the repairs are undertaken. "The public and businesses will continue to be informed in the lead-up to and during the repairs." Documents seen by the ABC claim Water PNG began warning the PNG government of a water infrastructure crisis more than a year ago. "Port Moresby's water supply system is now operating under extreme and unsustainable risk, with multiple critical assets … at or beyond end-of-life," a Water PNG report from November 2025 said. "These critical assets have suffered protracted degradation and are showing signs of imminent failure." An example of leaks along a flume that forms part of Port Moresby's water supply network. (Supplied) It warned the city's water system had almost no redundancy or storage buffer and a major failure was likely to rapidly reduce water supply to the city, with cascading health, security and economic consequences. Water PNG wrote that it had warned the PNG government of problems since April last year in a series of formal letters. "These correspondences outlined how decades of underinvestment in maintenance and upgrades, coupled with governance weaknesses in the sector, have left the city's water supply system in a fragile state," the report said. It also said Water PNG was effectively insolvent, with the PNG government owing more than $80 million in unpaid water bills to the cash-strapped utility. PNG Prime Minister James Marape told the ABC he only became aware of the situation in recent months. "I was informed of this early this year and then that's the reason why we have a cabinet proposal that came to us three cabinets ago," he said. Paul Barker says the work the government is doing should have taken place decades ago. (ABC News: Marian Faa) But others are asking why the situation has been allowed to deteriorate. Paul Barker, who heads Papua New Guinea's leading policy think-tank, the Institute of National Affairs, said infrastructure upgrades and maintenance should have taken place decades ago. "Preparation is occurring now but it's very much last minute and almost desperate preparation," he said. Port Moresby's water infrastructure was laid from the 1940s until the 1960s, when Papua New Guinea was under Australian administration. The gravity-fed system channels raw water from a large dam on the mountainous outskirts of the city to a treatment plant in Port Moresby. There has been very little maintenance since the infrastructure was built more than 50 years ago. Steel pipe walls, originally 15 millimetres thick, have worn down to just 2 millimetres in some places, with hundreds of millions of litres of water rushing through them each day. The pipeline's steel walls have become so thin that holes have formed in some

Sinkhole near PNG's capital just one sign of water network crisis

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