By Roberto Morejon
 
In the midst of fatiguing temperatures, Cubans, especially Havana residents, faced additional difficulties in the distribution of water through the traditional system, a problem urgently attended to, although the country's financial resources are very limited.
 
It is true that the largest of the Antilles entered the rainy phase of the year with a serious deficit in its reservoirs, but a very generous month of June, according to rain gauges, managed to improve availability.
 
However, the breakage of water pumping equipment also affected by electrical discharges and the initial shortage of materials for their repair, affected the distribution to customers in several municipalities of Havana.
 
Such a shortage is always a cause for concern, especially if the summer has brought, as is the case in 2023, a very marked rise in thermometers and a thermal sensation that some people find suffocating.
 
Without avoiding these meteorological complexities, technicians and workers of the Water Resources Institute work to repair paralyzed pumping equipment, and replace others when possible if their operation is below adequate parameters.
 
The installation of community water tanks where feasible, the monitoring and maintenance of the water impulse and distribution infrastructure and the transfer of more tanker cars to carry the precious liquid to areas where the delivery cycle has become more spaced out, were outlined as timely provisions in the face of the constraints.
 
Technicians and customers of the water distribution service are impatiently awaiting the announced arrival of new pressure equipment, acquired abroad.
 
With these arrivals, the number of people in Havana whose water supply has been disrupted in recent weeks could be reduced more rapidly.
 
The mishap caused setbacks for 200,000 people, but today 40 percent of them are back to normal.
 
It should not be overlooked that the situation with the water supply in Cuba, now especially in Havana, is caused by the U.S. blockade.
 
The persecution of credits granted to the largest of the Antilles and banking transactions dramatically reduced the availability of foreign currency.
 
The company Aguas de La Habana used to replace ten percent of the work equipment every year, but since 2019 it has not been possible to make that investment.
 
Without water there is no life and Cuba is working against the clock to mitigate additional damages to the usual distribution.