Desperate residents collect water from a SEWER in Venezuela’s capital as power cut that shut down the supply enters its sixth day
- Rolling power outages have struck across much of Venezuela and the crisis has stretched into the sixth day
- Blackouts out have left many homes without water which has forcing many Venezuelans to flee the country
- Desperate residents have been forced to collect water in buckets and bottles from sewers, drains and rivers
- Caracas is said to need 20,000 litres of water per second to maintain the service, according a city engineer
Venezuelans have been forced to scavenge for water from sewers, drains and rivers as the country’s blackout continues into its sixth day.
Rolling power outages have struck across much of Venezuela since Thursday, crippling the oil-rich but economically troubled country.
Without power, water has not been able to be pumped into homes, leaving many in the capital to gather it in buckets and bottles from rivers and drains.
Businesses been shut down, hospitals have struggled to operate and public transport has barely functioned during the nearly week-long crisis.
At least 17 patients are thought to have died in hospitals, mainly those with advanced kidney disease, due to the power supply to medical facilities being stopped.
Since the crisis began an exodus of more than 3 million Venezuelans, most of whom have fled to neighbouring South American countries, has led to clashes between protesters and government forces at the border.
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People collecting water from a sewage canal at the river Guaire in Caracas on Monday as a massive power outage continues affecting areas of the country
The blackout out has left many homes without water and residents have been forced to hunt around the capital of Caracas looking for rivers, drain pipes and even sewers
Venezuelans have had to use any container they could to collect get water to take back to their families after a blackout cut off water supply to their homes
The lack of water has left many worrying about the spread of disease and being able to help those with chronic illnesses as hospitals and medical facilities have also been left without power
The blackout out left homes without water and many forced to hunt around the capital of Caracas looking for rivers, drain pipes and even sewers.
The lack of water has become one of the most excruciating side effects of the nationwide blackout that the government of President Nicolas Maduro has blamed on U.S.-backed sabotage but his critics call the product of corruption and incompetence.
The blackout has worsened the situation of a country already facing a hyperinflationary economic collapse that has spurred a mass migration and turned once-basic items like corn flour and toilet paper into unaffordable luxuries for most people.
After six days without electricity to pump water, Venezuelans from working-class neighbourhoods to upscale apartment towers are complaining of increasingly infrequent showers, unwashed dishes, and stinking toilets.
Caracas needs 20,000 litres of water per second from nearby watersheds to maintain service, said Jose de Viana, an engineer who ran Caracas’ municipal water authority in the 1990s.
Last week that had fallen to around 13,000 and since Thursday’s blackout it has halted completely, he said.
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Caracas is said to need 20,000 litres of water per second to maintain service to its citizens, but many have had to gather water from sewers, rivers and drains
After six days without electricity to pump water, Venezuelans from working-class neighbourhoods to upscale apartment towers are complaining of increasingly infrequent showers, unwashed dishes, and stinking toilets
Desperate: People collecting water from a sewage canal at the river Guaire in the capital city of Caracas on Monday
A little girl standing inside a plastic barrel while her family waits to collect water from an open pipe above the Guaire River, during rolling blackouts which affect the water pumps in people’s homes
Many worry about the spread of disease. The lack of water compounds the inability to buy soap due to soaring prices or chronic shortages.
Caracas residents could be seen in videos posted online gathering around a sewer pipe collecting water with buckets and bottles to take home to their families.
Lilibeth Tejedor was one of those who found herself looking for water on Monday in the last place she would have imagined – a drain pipe feeding into a river carrying sewage through the city.
The 28-year-old joined dozens of people who had flocked to the Guaire river, which snakes along the bottom of a sharp ravine alongside Caracas’ main highway, to fill up a four-gallon (15 litre) plastic container.
Unlike the fetid liquid flowing through the Guaire river, the water emerging from the pipe was at least clear.
Residents queuing for drinking water being distributed in a tanker in the municipality of Chacao in a tanker, in Caracas
Two men carrying a water bin in Caracas. The blackout out left homes without water and many forced to hunt around the capital for water sources
Residents standing in line with buckets and large bottles to get water supplies from any source they can after homes were left without an supply
A woman waiting to collect water from an open pipe above the Guaire River during rolling blackouts, which affect the water pumps in people’s homes, offices and stores, in Caracas
Those who gathered to collect it said the water had been released by local authorities from reservoirs.
They added, however, that it was being carried through unsanitary pipes and should only be used to flush toilets or scrub floors.
‘I’ve never even seen this before. It’s horrible, horrible,’ said Tejedor, preparing to carry the container on a small hand cart back to her home in the neighbourhood of San Agustin.
Tejedor, who works at a computer technology store, has a two-year-old daughter and takes care of two nieces.
‘The ones that are most affected are the children, because how do you tell a child that there’s no water?’ she said.
Many Venezuelans have been queuing in the dark during the blackout to collect water from any source they can. PIctured a woman collecting water distributed in a tanker in the municipality of Chacao in a tanker, in Caracas
A solid waste landfill near San Pedro del Rio. Many Venezuelans have been forced to rummage through rubbish dumps to find food
Locals illegally crossing the Venezuelan-Colombian border at Simon Bolivar International Bridge on Monday
Opposition leader Juan Guaido, who in January invoked the constitution to assume the interim presidency after declaring Maduro’s re-election a fraud, led the country’s legislature on Monday in declaring a ‘state of alarm’ over power problems.
Maduro is facing an unprecedented political crisis and the United States, which backs Guaido, has levied crippling oil industry sanctions meant to starve the government of its sources of foreign revenue.
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Up the road from where Tejedor stood, hundreds of angry residents blocked the highway on Monday to demand that local authorities deliver a 20,000-liter cistern to supply water to the neighborhood of La Charneca.
‘They’re killing us with hunger and thirst,’ said Gladys Martinez, 52, a homemaker, who joined the demonstration that blocked two lanes of the highway, snarling traffic and drawing dozens of police and National Guard troops to the scene.
Along the riverbed, teenagers and children accompanied their parents to help carry water. As two children began stomping in the sewage, a woman warned them: ‘That water’s dirty! Don’t start playing around because remember there’s no medicine.’
A kidney disease patient receives treatment at a hospital, whose power is supplied by generators, during a blackout in San Cristobal on Monday
A burnt car at a crossing point on the Venezuelan-Colombian border near Francisco de Paula Santander bridge
A bus damaged during clashes at a crossing point on the Venezuelan-Colombian border near Francisco de Paula Santander bridge
Water trucks, a common sight in Caracas, are increasingly struggling to fill up because state-run reservoirs are running low.
On the northern edge of Caracas, where the city meets the El Avila national park, hundreds of people lined up to collect water from mountain streams.
Lack of water, along with the power outage, has become a major concern for hospitals – which have for years suffered from lack of equipment and supplies.
Jose Velez, 58, a security guard who also arrived at the Guaire to collect water, said the blackout had made life unbearable and wished the country’s politicians would agree on how to resolve the situation.
‘I’m not interested in these politicians, they never agree on anything,’ said Velez. ‘I want my life to go back to normal.’
The United States announced it was withdrawing all remaining diplomatic personnel from its embassy in Caracas as the crisis deepend, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last night.
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