Male, Dec 8 (IANS): Maldivian President Abdulla Yameen has admitted that the water crisis in the capital city was caused by lack of preparedness but his government has done well to bring the situation under control, authorities said Monday.

President Yameen spoke to the public for the first time Sunday regarding the Male water crisis, and said that there could have been no fall-back plan for such a crisis, Xinhua reported.

"We did not have any fall-back plan for any disaster of this magnitude. However, we have done extreme hard work to try and bring the situation back to normal," he said.

He said the low odds of such an incident's occurrence had prevented the state-owned Male Water and Sewerage Company (MWSC) from making plans to deal with the current situation.

Yameen said that five of the nine panel boards at the MWSC had now been fully repaired, estimating that the full effort would cost $20 million, which is currently being raised by the government.

Male plunged into crisis last Thursday when a fire at MWSC gutted the desalination plant, leaving 130,000 people without water, leading to dwindling of bottled drinking water supply.

As India, China, and Sri Lanka have supplied large quantities of fresh water, President Yameen expressed his thanks to these countries for their help.

The 130,000 residents of capital city of Male consume around 14,000 metric tonnes of water a day, with the fully functioning plant being able to produce only around 20,000 tonnes.