BUTTERWORTH, the former industrial capital of the Transkei crippled by service payment protests and a municipal workers strike last year, has now run out of water. Businesses, schools, homes and the hospital have been without water for a week, it was learned on Wednesday, after the town’s three municipal water pumps were reported “broken”. The municipality, behind closed doors in a crisis meeting on Wednesday, says “parts will be hard to find” and that it simply does not have the money to repair the pumps. Tank water, like most of the town’s taps, has run out and businesses are ferrying supplies from East London 80km away. Teachers are fearing a health hazard as toilets cannot be flushed and there is “not a drop to drink” for thousands of needy children, while nurses at Butterworth Hospital say the facility’s emergency tank water is about to run dry.