A photo of Qiu Tianpei's blistered, bruised, and swollen hands that made rounds on Chinese social networking platforms is drawing attention to city maintenance workers who have to work overtime to fix pipes. 

As record-breaking temperatures dawn this week, sometimes even reaching negative 7.2°C, many households' experienced pipes and water meters malfunction. The water apparently froze due to low temperature, and its expansion broke pipes, prompting residents to call for maintenance. 

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The Shanghai Municipal Water Supply Administration reportedly received 10,000 calls requesting for repairs from Monday to Wednesday. This is more than thrice their usual number of callers. 

"Many of my colleagues slept for a few hours in the office and relied on instant noodles for quick meals to save time for the repair work," Qiu, a 47-year-old native of Deyang city, Sichuan province, told China Daily. 

Because of the number of pipes to be repaired, plumbers like Qiu and his colleagues have to delay visiting their homes for the Spring Festival. They will be forced to go home instead early in February. 

"Regardless of how much time I need to spend there, I won't leave before the water supply is restored," Qui said.

"It hardly helps to keep my hands warm if I put on gloves, which will get wet in seconds. It seems more important to help residents solve their difficulties than keep my hands warm," he added. 

"If the aging water meters are replaced during regular maintenance, and the old water pipes are given insulation layers, we can cope with extreme weather calmly," said An Yiqing, a member of the local political advisory body.

Qiu works at the maintenance station in Shanghai's Jing'an district. Its director, Li Xiaofei, said that his 14 workers already attended to more than 1,000 households from Monday to Wednesday, which is equal to their typical workload for one month. 

"All of our repairmen are working around the clock, but we are still falling behind what's needed. Nearly one-third of the water meters in the old residential communities in the area are broken. We will have to fight for another several days," Li said. 

Qiu said a repairing job can take him a minimum of five minutes to an hour. 

TagsShanghai, China cold temperature, Qiu Tianpei, plumbing, city maintenance