Mozambique prays for rain as water shortages hit country’s poor
In the township of Chamanculo, in Maputo, Mozambique, a network of household taps made the community water pump obsolete years ago, freeing residents from the daily burden of lugging massive jerrycans of water long distances.
But a water crisis, partly caused by an ongoing drought affecting much of southern Africa, is already reversing progress in this coastal city. An emergency “orange alert”, declared last February by the country’s disaster management council after failed rains, has triggered such strict water rationing across the capital city that the taps are turned off every other day and irrigation is banned.
Unable to afford the private wells, boreholes and extra tanks used by the rich to buffer themselves from the restrictions, Chamanculo’s residents once again find themselves gathering at a single tap. At 9am, a steady stream of mostly women, some with babies strapped to their backs, line up at Pragosa, a Portuguese construction firm, which is providing free water from a private borehole to the community during the emergency for an hour every day. They fill up 25-litre canisters and carefully balance them on their heads, often making repeat trips home and back again.
Helena Metela, 20, a mother of a three-month-old boy, Ali, says it is a struggle but she has no choice. “The construction company is a little bit far from my home,” she says. “It takes time. Maybe an hour.”
With no end to the current water shortage in sight, the municipality is considering bringing back community pumps to deal with the dwindling supply.
Unlike Capetown, in neighbouring South Africa where the water supply is at breaking point, Maputo has not got to the stage where officials have predicted a “day zero”, when taps are forecast to run dry. But it is clear that without urgent action, Maputo could be the next southern African city to suffer extreme water shortages. Worse still, future projections are for the city to double in size, from 1.7 million people to 3.5million by 2035, sending…
