A break in the main water pipe, caused by workers from Servicios Comunales during garbage collection, has left several families without water supply for more than ten days in the Consejo Popular Novia del Mediodía, in the municipality of La Lisa, Havana.
The event was reported to Cubanet by Ricardo Jesús Pupo Reyes, a self-employed worker with a disability who lives in the area with his wife, four minor children, and his 85-year-old mother.
According to Pupo Reyes, the workers from Comunales struck and damaged a steel pipe while operating a backhoe on Avenue 51. "Everything suggests that they hit the main pipe and broke it. They finished collecting their trash and left as if nothing had happened," he recounted.
The failure was reported immediately to the Empresa de Aguas de La Habana, but the institutional response was practically nonexistent. "On the fifth day, they came, looked, and said they would return another day, either on Monday or within a week, because they had a lot of pending work," explained the affected person.
In light of official inaction, Pupo Reyes is forced to travel more than five blocks with a borrowed wheelbarrow and two small tanks to collect water from a leak that springs from the ground and flows like a stream down the avenue.
The man walks for about eight hours a day dragging a vending cart and uses a prosthesis on his foot. "What I should do is rest and take off the prosthesis to relieve my foot; however, I can't do that because I have to go out to fetch water," he lamented.
The sanitary conditions in her home are critical. "Look at how my bathroom is; nobody can be inside because of the terrible smell," she said.
Pupo Reyes also denounced the indifference of the authorities toward a community with children, the elderly, and sick people. "I don't understand why it has taken so long here, in a community where there are children, elderly people, and sick individuals, and they don't care, they haven't even sent a water truck," he noted.
In the absence of solutions, the residents of the community organized themselves and repaired the pipe on their own, although they had not yet been able to confirm if the fix was effective.
The case of La Lisa is part of a national water crisis of utmost severity. The Cuban water infrastructure has been deteriorating for over 40 years, and 87% of the supply system relies on the National Electric System, which has experienced six total blackouts in a year and a half. In 2025, Cuba recorded its fifth driest year since 1901, with over 3.1 million people —30% of the population— facing a total or partial lack of water.
A similar pattern to that of La Lisa has been documented in other provinces: in Ciego de Ávila, one area went 36 days without being able to store water, and in the village of Entronque de Herradura, Pinar del Río, residents have been without regular service for over two years and pay 4,000 pesos for a water truck.
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