Global Courant
STORY: These tankers in Havana are being filled with water – now a rare commodity for thousands of residents of the Cuban capital.
According to state media, between 100,000 and 200,000 people in Havana – or even 10% of the population – do not have access to it.
Residents have an idea why.
“We have been using the same pump system for so many years. I don’t have much knowledge of this, but you get to the point where if you don’t fix or change anything, years take their toll, like old people who are well until they get sick.
Local officials say aging infrastructure is a factor.
They add that climate change-induced droughts aren’t helping either.
It makes everyday life more difficult for people like Annia Batista, a resident of Old Havana.
“We haven’t had water in days,” she says. “The water problem is very, very bad.”
The water problems come as the communist-led country is going through one of its worst economic crises in decades.
Severe US sanctions, floundering tourism, rising inflation and shortages of food, medicine and fuel are all catastrophic for the island.
A top provincial Communist Party official says nearly two dozen new pumps will help with water shortages.
But Luis Antonio Torres says they won’t arrive for weeks.
“We have to do everything we can, even the impossible, so that people get water and monitor who is most affected so that water gets to them.”
Meanwhile, the local government is also asking people to conserve energy as demand exceeds forecasts.
Blackouts are a thorny subject in Cuba.
In part, they sparked anger that sparked anti-government protests across the island, including demonstrations in July 2021, believed to be the largest since former leader Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution.
