Bulawayo Water Crisis Worsens

The Mayor, who was addressing journalists at a press club in the city, also appealed for rain prayers.

“What I can tell you is that the water situation in this city is now getting worse as our remaining three supply dams are getting dry. If we don’t receive rains in the next coming month they will be disaster in this city,” he warned.

“But as the city council we will not sit and watch whilst our people dying due to water shortages.  We have also made some plans to bring water from other towns or from Zambezi River using the National Railways of Zimbabwe goods trains,” he said.

The city’s deepening water crisis has seen more than a million people going without the precious liquid for half a week devastating an already reeling local economy facing massive deindustrialisation.

Recently the local authority asked residents to participate in a “big flush” concurrently at 7:30pm every Saturday evening so that human waste does not solidify in the city’s aging sewerage pipes.

The Bulawayo Mayor also said his council will investigate reports that some manufacturing companies in the city, which are exempted from water shedding, are now selling water to desperate residents.

Last week Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai said his office will work hard to resolve Bulawayo’s critical water situation.