About 200 homes in Mid Wales were today spending their sixth day without water after freezing conditions caused pipes to burst.

Welsh Water bosses hope to restore supplies to the properties in St Harmon and Abbeycwmhir, near Rhyader, later today. At the height of the problems – which began on Wednesday – thousands of properties were without water.

Nineteen mobile water tankers were deployed across Wales to help in the crisis.

Welsh Water had hoped to restore supplies to the properties in St Harmon and Abbeycwmhir on Saturday, but this had been delayed.

A spokesman said it had been difficult locating bursts in the rural locations.

The company said it had four times as many engineers as usual working in the area on Sunday.

The majority of customers elsewhere had water supplies restored by Sunday, Welsh Water added.

Around 2,000 homes in Llandrindod Wells were affected by the weather.

Meanwhile, a Mid Wales school faces a race against time to be open for the new term after burst pipes led to flooding.

Welshpool High School suffered problems in the school gym and canteen over the New Year period and staff are working to ensure the school can open in time for the new term tomorrow.

Workers were today due at the school to complete the clean up.

Emma Savage, council spokeswoman, said other schools were also dealing with utilities failures and could be closed.

She said: “Ysgol Rhiw Bechan in Tregynon will be closed for the remainder of this week due to a utilities failure and we expect to hear from other schools as and when they report problems to us.

“This information is made available on our website at www.powys.gov.uk and we ask parents to keep checking on the site to ensure that term starts as planned,” she added.

“We have not heard anything from Welshpool High School yet.”

It comes as 200 homes in Highley, near the Shropshire border, were left without water when two mains burst.

Stores in the village sold out of bottles of water as homeowners rushed to stock up until supplies were restored.

By Andrew Morris