RSS
Home
Venezuela: Water rationing in Caracas starts today
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
Collecting mountain water in Caracas (AFP)
In line with government plans to deal with a severe drought, citizens of Venezuela’s capital city will have to face strict cuts in water supply through May of next year.
Water service will be shut off for as much as 48 hours per week and will be staggered throughout the city, according to AFP reports citing Venezuelan government officials.
Some weather forecasters blame a severe drought spawned by “El Niño,” and others blame poor management by water sector officials.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, however, had other ideas of the real cause for the shortage—the excesses of capitalism.
“What will the rich fill their swimming pools with?” Chávez asked recently. “With the water that is denied inhabitants in the poor neighborhoods,” he said, blaming the lack of sufficient water on “capitalism—a lack of feeling, a lack of humanity.”
However, according to the Latin American Herald Tribune, water taps in poor districts are known to run indefinitely, or until they dry up, because nobody can turn them off. And the government's critics claim that the real cause of the trouble is years, if not decades, of inadequate maintenance, or none at all.
Chávez has recently called on the Venezuelan people to help conserve water by taking three-minute showers with cold water, and using only a small beaker of water for brushing teeth.
RELATED ARTICLES:
"Venezuela: Major water shortage in Caracas, rationing to begin in two weeks"
"Venezuela borrowing millions to fix ailing electrical grid"
.gif)
Related Articles:
Comments
