Rainy Season Caracas Hit By Water Shortages And Power Cuts

As if life wasn't hard enough for the long-suffering people of Caracas, they've been hit by a prolonged shortage of water – and ironically enough, right in the middle of the rainy season.

One estimate has it that at least two million people, roughly a third of the capital's population, have gone without water for at least two days, and it's said a lot of them are still waiting. Critics claim the real figure's probably higher. It's not just the rickety, ramshackle, tumbledown poor districts that have been hit, although they usually get it worst from this sort of thing.

Middle class areas such as Chacao and distinctly up-market Altamira in the center of the city and El Hatillo to the south got it in the neck as well. Better-off Venezuelans like to pride themselves on being well turned-out, but an air of scruffiness may be starting to become the odor, pardon, order of the day.

The water shortage has been exacerbated by a landslide on the outskirts of the capital. Whether this was caused by Mother Nature or building work nearby has yet to be established with any certainty. Either way, tons of waterlogged mud crashed through a pipeline buried below the surface of the ground and swept away a 40-meter stretch. Hidrocapital, the water company, promised to have the service back up and running by Thursday evening.

As it turned out and not to the surprise of residents long inured to being constantly reminded that getting things done in the city can prove a long and arduous uphill struggle, this didn't happen. So some folks turned to truck drivers who deliver drinking water to districts which still don't have running water. They soon found out this was to little avail, too, because there wasn't any water for the trucks, either.

Officials blame recent heavy rains for the people's hardship, as if the heavens opening up right in the middle of the monsoon-like rainy season were something that had unexpectedly leapt out at them. Much the same rationale was put forward as water shortages began to be accompanied by a wave of power cuts. All this put paid to the customarily long Friday lunch with compañeros from the workplace.

Caraqueños, hardly the most patient people on the planet, are not in the best of moods right now.