HONOLULU -- Sewage will continue to pour into the Ala Wai Canal until at least Friday and maybe even a week longer, according to city officials. The sewer main that ruptured in Waikiki last Friday is turning out to be very difficult to fix.

Kiaolu Street in Waikiki is now a major excavation and construction site. City crews are there and a private contractor has been brought in to help.

"We don't have an easy fix. This is taking a long, long time," Mayor Mufi Hannemann said.

The pipe is about 10 feet below the road and cracked at a joint. The line serves all of Waikiki and other surrounding areas. Since Friday between 5 million and 10 million gallons of wastewater has been dumped into the Ala Wai, and flowed offshore of Magic Island, officials said.

"I know there's some concern about the amount of sewage that has gone into the Ala Wai Canal. As much as we wanted to avoid that, it's not possible," city Environmental Services director Eric Takamura said.

The mayor said if crews didn't dump the sewage in the Ala Wai Canal, the sewage would have backed up into buildings in Waikiki. Crews hope to have the problem fixed in four days.

"We're going to try to go in and tape up the pipe per se with lead wool some hydrolic cement and also we can wrap it with fiberglass and then come in later and concrete jacket that particular segment," Takamura said.

If that doesn't work they'll have to replace a section of pipe and that could take a week. Warning signs remain posted along beaches. Officials did not close any beaches because the current is flowing out, but that could change.