The filter plant in Shtip can process turbid water at parameters of around 50 NTU. At the moment of the shutdown, the water arriving from the Zletovica hydro system had a turbidity of over 400 NTU.

Eight times over capacity. That is why the plant was switched off and Shtip was left without drinking water.

The cause was a storm in the Probishtip region on Saturday, 29 August. One storm, in one neighbouring region, for a city of fifty thousand people.

What gets called an emergency but is predictable

Aleksandar Arsovski, director of the public utility Isar, held an emergency press conference and asked citizens for understanding and patience, describing the situation as the consequence of a natural disaster. Asked when the filter plant would start working again, he said it would be unwise to say.

That is not an answer you give when a system has a backup option. It is the answer you give when it does not.

Mayor Ivan Jordanov later said the water supply was returning to normal in the city and the suburban settlements, after the turbidity dropped and the plant was switched back on. The problem is solved - until the next storm.

The wells that worked for half a century

The opposition SDSM reacted sharply, and inside that reaction there is one fact worth more than the political accusation it is wrapped in: the Shtip wells, which functioned for over fifty years, have been left to decay.

"Because of a small storm, the Zletovica hydro system was out of operation. The only water option in Shtip. In the 21st century, Shtip and its people depend on a single storm for whether they have water or not," their statement reads, laying responsibility with the governing VMRO-DPMNE and the mayor who comes from its ranks.

The party narrative here is predictable and will change with the next election. What will not change is the technical fact underneath it: one city has one water source, and the alternative existed and was left to fail.

It is not just Shtip

Other municipalities depend on the same hydro system. Dejan Vladev, mayor of Sveti Nikole, appealed for rational water use, because they too could not treat the Zletovica water because of the extreme turbidity. They drained the network, reserves still held, but the interruption was expected.

So one storm in the Probishtip area left several municipalities in eastern Macedonia without reliable water at the same time. That is not a local incident - it is a description of how the system is built.

Who answers for the abandoned wells is a question nobody has yet asked for a name on.