Taps running dry in Mexico’s wealthy city of Monterrey; ‘like we’ve gone back in time’
- Residents are angry big factories are largely still operating, allowed to suck up groundwater via private wells amid reservoirs draining in the drought
- Experts say situation in Monterrey is a ‘crystal ball’ for Southern California, with both areas relying heavily on far away water sources
Three months pregnant and queasy with morning sickness, Yasmin Acosta Ruiz, 33, pushed a cart laden with buckets of water through the scorching July heat. As she and her seven-year-old son eased the cart over a speed bump, water sloshed onto the pavement. They both winced.
Here on the outskirts of Monterrey, a sprawling industrial city that has become the face of Mexico’s water crisis, every drop counts.
Drought has drained the three reservoirs that provide about 60 per cent of the water for the region’s five million residents. Most homes now receive water for only a few hours each morning. And on the city’s periphery, many taps have run completely dry.
Over the last two weeks, water had flowed in Acosta’s home just once, for several hours. The rest of the time – to flush the toilet, wash clothes or dishes, and bathe – Acosta had to haul water by hand from a well in a park half a mile away. It was not safe to drink, though, so she had to buy bottled water to cook with.
“It’s like we’ve gone back in time,” she said, wiping sweat from her forehead as she finished her eighth trip to the well that day. “And tomorrow I’ll have to do it all over again.”
The crisis has sparked widespread upheaval, with frustrated residents blocking major highways in protest and people in other parts of the state setting fire to pipes that were supposed to divert emergency flows to the city.
