Hundreds of thousands of people in one of South Africa’s most important economic regions risk having their taps run dry within weeks.
A severe drought has depleted dams in the southern Nelson Mandela Bay municipality, which includes the coastal city of Gqeberha, with three of the main reservoirs that supply about a third of its 1.3 million people close to empty.
South Africa and other nations on the continent are among those most vulnerable to food and water insecurity caused by extreme weather events, according to the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The municipality is the main economic hub in the Eastern Cape province, which accounts for about 7.7% of South Africa’s $429 billion gross domestic product.
While environmental approval was granted last year for a desalination plant in Coega, construction has yet to begin.“There needs to be a very conscious reduction in water demand,” said Sputnik Ratau, the water department’s spokesman. “We should be able to get through this period” if the municipality sticks to within its water allocation, and over the longer term more water could be made available by building new infrastructure and linking the river basins that supply the area, he said.
In an informal settlement in Missionvale, 15 kilometers northeast of the Gqeberha city center, water gushes from communal taps and residents complain that leaks can go unfixed for months, with municipal workers unresponsive to their complaints.
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