WATER GREAT IDEA: Broken Water ATM Fixed By Putting Human Inside

This is how inventive staff at a Turkey water board fixed a busted payment machine by putting a human being inside.

Global water shortages have encouraged authorities to get more inventive in rationing, and in Turkey, some households have to purchase credits from an ATM to keep the water flowing.

They pay cash into the machine and get back a card that allows them to use so much water.

But when one ATM broke down, desperate locals in the city of Eskisehir, north-west Turkey, were without water until officials ripped out the innards of the ATM – and put a human inside on 23rd November.

Many people queued desperately to get water credits and poked cash through the hole where the money was previously accepted for the top-up.

A man behind a vending machine takes money from people manually in Eskisehir, Turkey, Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2022. It is reported that the man behind the vending machine started to manually control it after the vending machine broke down. (CEN)

Once it had been counted on the other side, a human being then manually typed in the amount that was being credited to the card, and poked it back out again.

One user filmed the hand grabbing the cash before the card was inserted, which then went viral locally.

In a statement, the Eskisehir Metropolitan Municipality Water and Sewerage Administration (ESKI) said: “Our technical staff, who received the call, went to the region where the machine was placed and started to check the device.”

“In the first place, he removed the mechanism that accepts the money and checked whether there was any money or foreign matter jammed.”

Photo shows an illustrative image of a water vending machine, undated photo. The inventive staff at a local water board in Turkey fixed a water vending machine by putting a human being inside. (CEN)

“Then, he took the amount from the people waiting in line, asked them to insert their cards into the machine, and added the amount to be loaded manually inside the cabin. He manually operated the system like a cash desk.”

They added that the machine had since been fixed and was now working again as normal.