Ecuador’s capital rocked by water shortage crisis upending daily life
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Desperation is mounting in Ecuador’s capital as thousands of people remain without drinking water a week into Quito’s worst shortage in 25 years.
The daily lives of some 400,000 residents have been seriously disrupted by the emergency, which happened after a landslide damaged a pipeline that supplied water to much of southern Quito.
“We can’t live without water!” shout residents of the Chillogallo neighborhood as they line up along a street, waiting for a tanker to deliver water.
Emergency crews have been racing to distribute water supplies to six affected areas and remove sludge from the damaged pipelines, all while officials in Quito city government and national government officials bicker over how to address the crisis.
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Older adults are the most vulnerable
With buckets, bottles, trash cans and other kinds of containers, residents wait in the street for a water tanker to arrive. Among them is Ines Castro, 74, who sits on a sidewalk under the sun.
“We’ve been waiting in line since morning, and no one has arrived,” Castro said, with tears welling up in her eyes when asked if anyone accompanied her. “I live alone, I’m all alone,” she replies and said she hopes a neighbor will help her carry the bucket home if she manages to fill it.
The municipality has mobilized some 70 water trucks, but they are not enough to serve everyone and don’t always adhere to a schedule.
Erselinda Guilca, who is now retired, says her health is failing and asks for a quick solution to the problem.
“We’re old and can no longer carry heavy buckets of water. We have been here in this cold since morning, hungry. We don’t even have water to bathe,” she said, adding that she would prefer not to have electricity than to be without water, which is essential.
With a plastic washbasin and a pot from her kitchen, Elsa Sarango joins the neighbors’ protest while waiting in line for the water truck.
“If we were young, we wouldn’t mind carrying it; this is very heavy. I just ask for a little water,” she said. She insists that as the days go by, the sanitation and hygiene needs in her home increase. “They don’t tell us the exact time. We have to make trips little by little, otherwise, how would we live?”
Untreated water: a desperate option
Elsewhere in southern Quito, people in the Nueva Aurora neighborhood have grown increasingly desperate and are gathering in the central park to collect water from a spring that doesn’t meet sanitary or purification standards.
Residents have to walk several blocks to retrieve this water. Others get there on vehicles and bicycles, and some rent small, homemade carts that are used to transport containers to avoid carrying so much weight.
“At least it works for me to use for the bathroom. My house is four blocks away. There’s no other option, even if the water isn’t drinkable,” a man arriving in a hurry tells CNN.
A bricklayer named Tomas Chiguano says he’s forced to carry water in black garbage bags because he doesn’t have any containers.
“We don’t have trash cans. We’re there carrying it in bags, and sometimes the bags come out torn,” he said.
Chiguano emphasizes that his work as a bricklayer is affected because he lacks water to mix construction materials like cement and sand, which are essential for his projects.
As of Tuesday, the government has installed the first portable water treatment plant in the area to prevent health problems.
