Her elderly neighbor is hard of hearing so Maria Luisa Robles, a convenience store worker in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey, shouted the question a second time: Have you run out of water?
She had - and it wasn't just her. The taps across this working-class neighborhood of Sierra Ventana dried up over a week ago amid a historic shortage that's gripped the most important industrial city in Mexico.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comDesperate, Robles and her neighbors have resorted to climbing atop a nearby municipal water tank, filling up jugs, and lugging them back to their homes in order to drink, cook, clean, and wash bedsheets and school uniforms.
"We're in an extreme climate crisis," Nuevo Leon Governor Samuel Garcia said at a news conference last week. "Today, we're all living it and suffering." The state government says it is conserving water by repairing pipe leaks and installing pressure valves, while cracking down on farms, companies, and slaughterhouses caught pilfering water from rivers or clandestine wells.
Running water has stopped flowing in a few neighborhoods, Barragan acknowledged in a news conference last week.