Puerto Rico short of clean water

A WEEK after Hurricane Maria slammed into Puerto Rico, most of its 3.4 million residents are scrambling to find clean water – with experts concerned about a looming public health crisis posed by the island’s damaged water system.

Hundreds of people crowded around a government water tanker in the northeastern municipality of Canovanas with containers of every size and shape after a wait that had lasted days for many.

“This is the first tank they have brought here,” carpenter Juan Cruz, who was helping to fill the containers, said.

“That is why the people are creating such a commotion, so they can survive.”

The US territory’s water woes are tied to the collapse of its power grid as electricity is needed to pump, treat and filter water that shows up in household taps.

With the grid incapacitated, diesel-powered generators are needed to clean and move water where it needs to go.

However, the island did not have nearly enough generators to do that and fuel to run them was scarce, utility officials said.

Only about 40% to 45% of the customers of the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority had potable water as of Tuesday, company authorities said.

Island-wide water service may not resume until electricity is restored across Puerto Rico, which could take months.

Meanwhile, officials are racing to deliver bottled water and send tankers across the island, with desperation growing.

At the water line in Canovanas, about 32km southeast of the capital San Juan, people dunked bottles into larger containers still filling with water to make the most of their turn at the tanker. Others quenched their thirst straight away, draining their bottles, then refilling them.

Some residents said they had been without running water since Wednesday last week, when Maria knocked out electricity, phones and commerce around the island.

The US Federal Emergency Management Agency has provided more than four million meals and six million litres of water to Puerto Rico and the hurricane-hit US Virgin Islands.

An additional seven million meals and five million litres of water are en route by barge to the islands.

“The vast majority of people in Puerto Rico do not have access to safe drinking water systems,” an officer for the US Centres for Disease Control said.

With no water from taps, people have turned to wells and springs.