The police are on the hunt for heartless thieves who have stolen over 6,600 gallons of fresh drinking water which was provided to drought-stricken residents of an Australian town.
The incident occurred in Murwillumbah, New South Wales, where robbers armed with a water tanker and another vehicle made their way to the Airfield Avenue council depot and extracted a large volume of water.
“Theft of a very large volume of drinking water is a criminal act and we will be seeking to prosecute the offenders,” Troy Green of the local council said in an interview with ABC News.
“We will be asking every resident to save 50 liters of water every day, so we certainly will not tolerate any theft of this precious resource.”
In the footage handed over to the police, the thieves are seen filling up their water tanker before storming off.
As Chief Inspector Arthurs added, the “police will continue to investigate this incident and are pleading with anyone with information to contact us.”
According to the authorities, they were “shocked” to learn that someone had stolen this much water while the town and its residents are dealing with a severe drought.
Moreover, the theft followed just days before the region started implementing additional water restrictions in order for residents to save 50 liters of water per day.
“People are desperate. It’s not good but imagine how dire things must be to steal water. It’s actually really sad,” someone wrote on social media after the incident went viral.
“What’s going on nowadays, how could anyone steal from the community of people that are already forced to deal with out-of-control drought,” another one said.
“When caught they should be publicly named so their fellow citizens will know how low they are,” someone suggested.
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Replaced!