The escalating humanitarian crisis in Venezuela turned worse Thursday when the nation’s tap water ran black with oil as starving residents scramble to find food and other basic supplies across the impoverished country.
“Venezuelans have woken up to find their tap water running black in the latest crisis to hit the beleaguered South American nation,” reports the Daily Mail. “Residents in San Diego, Carabobo state, flooded social media with pictures and videos of the black water while complaining it had been contaminated with oil.”
People collect water from an open pipe above Venezuela's polluted Guaire River during rolling blackouts as growing chaos takes hold in the country. https://t.co/vvUHIP1yVx pic.twitter.com/d3ekODJdFm
— ABC News (@ABC) March 14, 2019
Government agencies delivered drinking water to desperate locals with cement trucks Wednesday as residents struggle to deal with the week-long blackout that has crippled the once oil-rich nation.
Read the full report at the Daily Mail.
DEVELOPING: Desperate Venezuelans Turn to ‘Sewage Pipes’ for Water as Blackout Continues
Desperate Venezuelans turned to “sewage drains” and other drastic measures to obtain water Tuesday as the nation’s blackout continued to cripple the country’s infrastructure and crumbling economy.
“As Venezuela’s five-day power blackout left homes without water, Lilibeth Tejedor found herself looking for it on Monday in the last place she would have imagined – a drain pipe feeding into a river carrying sewage through the capital,” reports Reuters.
“Tejedor, 28, joined dozens of people who had flocked to the Guaire river, which snakes along the bottom of a sharp ravine alongside Caracas’ main highway, to fill up a four-gallon (15 liter) plastic container,” adds the report.
“The ones that are most affected are the children, because how do you tell a child that there’s no water?” said one resident.
Venezuela’s socialist dictator Nicolas Maduro has publicly blamed the blackout on US authorities; accusing the Trump administration of launching “electrical warfare” against his regime.
Read the full report at Reuters.
PARADISE LOST: Venezuela Cuts PUBLIC WATER SUPPLY as Resources Dwindle
Venezuela’s crumbling economy and crippling resource shortages reached new heights this week, with the socialist government “cutting” water supplies as the country’s currency crisis soared to over 1,000,000% inflation.
According to Reuters, the nation’s hospitals, hotels, and apartment complexes have started closing shower facilities, public water taps, and sanitation equipment as residents struggle to find adequate food and drinkable water.
“I have gone to the operation bloc and opened the tap to wash my hands, as you must do before a surgery, and nothing comes out,” said one doctor.
“Water cuts are the latest addition to a long list of woes for Venezuelans hurting from a fifth year of an economic crisis that has sparked malnutrition, hyperinflation and emigration,” writes Reuters.
“For many years this deterioration process was not noticeable. But now the water transport systems are very damaged,” said an industry insider responsible for the capital’s water supply.
Read the full story here.