Capital of Maldives experiences its fifth day without water

MALé, Maldives, Dec. 8 (UPI) -- The capital city of the Maldives, Malé, is experiencing its fifth day without water after a fire at the city's only desalination plant.

The fire damaged the desalination plant's electrical systems on Thursday, and countries like India, Sri Lanka and China have airlifted bottled water to the city.

The country's only drinkable water comes from heavily filtered seawater.

The UN in Maldives has commended efforts to bring relief to city residents with help from the government, according to the local news site Minivan News.

"UN is working with the Government to monitor closely that there will be no deterioration of the situation," they said in a statement.

The opposition party of the government, the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), is not happy the government is only offering a 30 percent discount on water services after saying on Saturday water would be provided for free while the crisis continued.

"Water should be provided free of charge until the water crisis is resolved," Rozaina Adam of the MDP said at an MDP press conference.

The MDP has also spoken out about the government's failure to set a date for when water service would return.