Drought threatens sectors of Greater Santo Domingo

The innumerable symptoms of the seasonal drought, which, since the beginning of last month, the authorities warned was affecting the country, has left its mark in the neighborhoods of Greater Santo Domingo, especially in Santo Domingo East, where the residents say that they have to play tricks day after day to get the water drops.

“It’s dry that we are!, the water arrives here in one side yes and in others no and where it is arriving it is a matter of minutes, so that one does not have time to catch almost anything, and in the early hours of the morning. It is like a thing sent to do,” said Ana to Listín Diario in the sector of Invivienda.

According to the lady, the places in the neighborhood where the water reaches have been cut off since the beginning of the drought. Still, it has been eight days since the last time the Santo Domingo Water and Sewage Corporation (CAASD) sent the service. Moreover, it was approximately two o’clock in the morning, so, in her particular case, she had vast piles of unwashed clothes from the eight people who lived in her house.

In the same area, Milciades García explained that, although in his house they have started to take care early in the morning to limit the waste of water, the small amount of water that arrives from time to time, due to the decrease in the main dams of the country that feed the water corporations, does not exempt them from being without water for days at a time.

Expenses increase

“It is definitive, one collecting two pesos, who has to find a way to make ends meet to eat, and now with this drought it is four and five bottles of water daily because otherwise, who bathes?” questioned Ana, in the municipality of Santo Domingo Este.

In cases such as Miun Peña, he said that he has been fortunate that a water bottling plant near his home has allowed him to get water at no cost when his last water reserves run out.

However, neighborhoods such as those of Cancino Adentro said that they now have to buy water from time to time from trucks that cost them a minimum of 600 pesos.