Cuban capital facing “critical” water shortage
From EFE
HAVANA – The supply of potable water in the Cuban capital has reached its most critical state in the last 50 years, with more than 100,000 people dependent on tanker trucks for water and with sources of supply ready to collapse, Communist Party daily Granma said Friday.
The Havana water system loses 70 percent of the water pumped for consumers before it gets to them, the newspaper said.
Almost half of Havana’s more than 2 million inhabitants have suffered from serious problems in the basic water-supply system, while some 110,000 people are wholly dependent on deliveries of water by tanker trucks, according to official data cited by Granma.
The paper said that there has been a “notable drop” in accumulated volumes in aquifers and reservoirs due to the drought over the past two years and the poor functioning of an aqueduct “that has deteriorated over time.”
“In a more subtle way than hurricanes, this hydrological drought, together with the poor state of some 2,194 kilometers (1,363 miles) of pipelines, almost 71 percent, and other infrastructure problems, is also damaging the nation’s economy,” Granma said.
Once again the call was made to “stop the waste” in homes and businesses, and said that among the most wasteful were state institutions.
“Because of how serious the situation is, the possibility of cutting off service to those who consume more than planned is being evaluated,” Granma said.
To ease the situation, the government plans to construct several pipelines to improve water delivery, install valves, drill wells, restore pipelines that are in a poor state of repair, and eliminate leaks in water pumps and large aqueducts.
