In a television news broadcast last night I saw a report about Mexico city running short of water. Just to check that I hadn’t misheard I looked for information on the Internet and found this:
“Mexico City, one of the world's most populous cities could be just months away from running out of water. It's been brought on by a combination of geography, mushrooming growth, and leaky infrastructure all compounded by the effects of climate change.
Emily Green is a journalist based in Mexico City who's covered the story for NPR (National Public Radio, an American non-profit media organization).
“There are restrictions on water use. I think it very much depends where you live in the city. And that is maybe like the entire world, you know, if you have more money, and you're going to feel the impact of the water shortage, much less.
That said, I think what's unique right now is that it is being felt city wide. And I'll just use myself as an example. I live in one of the more upscale neighborhoods in Mexico City. And while reporting the story, the water stopped flowing from the top, I'm going to had a sink full of dishes, zero water coming.
For me, it was a little shocking. I haven't had that happen in a while. But that is actually a daily reality for many people in Mexico City.
I would say that there is two major factors. One is extremely old infrastructure in terms of the water pipes. So the city loses around 40 percent of the water recedes because of leaks in the pipes. And that's been a long standing problem.
But on top of that compounding that is climate change. And that is really what's happening right here, you have this very volatile combination of old infrastructure, combined with climate change, which means there have been years of much less rainfall than normal. This is the level of the reservoir that provide the water to Mexico City, the very low. And so that's what's happening now this kind of volatile combination.”
How strange that a city originally built on a group of islands in a lake (Lake Texcoco, to be precise, where the city of Tenochtitlan was built in 1325 by the original inhabitants, well before the arrival of the Spanish in 1492) should be running out of water.
Meanwhile here in the UK there are warnings that we too might face a summer water shortage (assuming it ever stops raining and we actually get a summer) because we’ve not built new reservoirs - n por presumably maintained the ones we already have - for decades. That sounds about right. After all, we’ve known since forever that the sewage treatment system needs updating but now we have raw sewage going into our rivers. Hey! Ho!
On the subject of rain, here’s a link to some photos of what happened to Spain’s Easter processions this year because of bad weather. The ancient statues which are usually carried through he streets during Holy Week are too precious to be exposed to the rain but it’s interesting to see how they still manage to cover some of them in plastic and try to go ahead.
Elsewhere, among the latest developments and setbacks in aid-distribution in Gaza comes the news that World Central Kitchen, the organisation that has been trying to coordinate the distribution of the inadequate* air-dropped aid, has had to suspend its activities there because their lorries have been subject to rocket attacks.
(* “Critics say the airdrops by the UK, US, France, Spain, Jordan and other countries are “inefficient, dangerous and expensive” and primarily aimed at diverting public anger as international powers fail to convince Israel to allow more aid to reach Gaza.” So say news reports.)
Quite how a government can claim to be involved in peace talks while still attacking aid convoys just beggars belief. But then so does the idea that they needed to destroy the Al Shifa hospital because 200 Hamas activists were sheltering there.
Wikipedia tells me “Al-Shifa Hospital was the largest medical complex and central hospital in the Gaza Strip, located in the neighborhood of northern Rimal in Gaza City. The hospital was first established by the government of Mandatory Palestine in 1946, and expanded during the Egyptian and later Israeli occupations. During the Gaza War, much of the media coverage came from correspondents reporting from the hospital”.
Maybe it’s the reporting they had to get rid of.
Life goes on, stay safe and well, everyone!
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