Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel acknowledged that the water shortage affecting the population in Havana has worsened following Hurricane Rafael's passage through the city.
During a tour to assess the damages caused by the phenomenon, it was reported that some water supply sources suffered breakages and are gradually recovering.
According to a report by the newspaper Juventud Rebelde, the president of the National Institute of Hydraulic Resources, Antonio Rodríguez Rodríguez, stated that currently around 250,000 residents of Havana are without service.
"In this regard, we are still in a worse situation than before the cyclone struck," Díaz-Canel noted succinctly.
Hurricane Rafael, which left much of the province without electricity for several days, worsened the situation regarding the water supply.
Last week, residents of Luyanó in the Diez de Octubre municipality expressed their dissatisfaction on social media regarding the lack of water.
"It's an abuse what they're doing to us. Over a week without water; when it does come, it barely trickles out and then it's gone again. How much longer?", a user reported in the Facebook group "Only People from Luyanó and Surroundings".
Desperation was evident in multiple posts: "Eight days without water in Luyanó, please"; "Luyanó without water, we need water"; "How long will this water issue last? If anyone has found a spring, please let us know."
The complaints from the people contrasted with the information released by the Assembly of People's Power in the region, which stated that water was being supplied in Luyanó through alternative methods, and that the issues in the homes were due to "problems with pressure in the pumping and distribution cycles."
The water scarcity in Cuba is a long-standing issue that the regime has been unable to resolve for many years.
The obsolescence of the pumps and equipment in hydroelectric plants, combined with aging infrastructure and a lack of maintenance, forces the population to rely on water trucks and transport water in buckets and containers. Additionally, frequent and prolonged power outages interrupt the pumping process and extend distribution cycles.
At the end of September, a resident of Santiago reported that after seven days without water service, he had to use a wheelbarrow to go to a neighbor's house, which has a cistern, to fill some jugs and have water for personal use.
A few days earlier, a Cuban shared a video on X of several residents from a village chasing water trucks to stock up.
The recording showed a group of neighbors walking with several buckets behind a water truck, including an elderly person struggling to move, while the driver did not stop to supply them with water.
"It's incredible that we are in 2024 and Cubans don't even have water to bathe and have to chase after the carts," questioned the author of the video.
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