Tokyo:
A Japanese school has been hit by a $27,000 water bill after a teacher in charge of pool maintenance left the tap open for months in hopes of stopping the coronavirus infections.
The teacher, who has not been identified, thought a steady flow of fresh water into the pool would keep it Covid-free and left the tap open from late June to early September.
Normally, chlorine and filter machines maintain the quality of the pool water, “but the teacher somehow got the wrong idea that it would also work to pour new water in and even prevent Covid,” said Akira Kojiri, official from the local education council to AFP.
Other employees occasionally noticed the running faucet and turned it off, but the offending co-worker soon turned it back on.
As a result, Kojiri said, an estimated 4,000 tons of excess water was used in just over two months — enough to fill the pool 11 times.
Local authorities in Yokosuka in central Japan’s Kanagawa prefecture are now demanding that the teacher and two chaperones pay half of the 3.5 million yen ($27,000) bill.
“We sincerely apologize to our residents for causing (financial) damage to our city,” Yokosuka authorities said in a statement.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.)
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