Water supplies to homes and businesses in Costa da Caparica, south of Lisbon, have been repeatedly interrupted this summer. Residents are at their wits’ ends; pipes are bursting (three so far in the space of a week), and there appears no end in sight to the misery and inconvenience.
SMAS, the local water management company, blames the situation on “the exceptionally elevated consumption of water, in a persistent form, that has marked the last few days”.
SMAS workers are “permanently on the ground, monitoring the situation”, said a source for the local Almada municipality’s water service.
Yesterday, reports Correio da Manhã tabloid, another large pipe ruptured near the IP20 highway, leaving water running along the road when people desperately wanted it in their taps.
The situation has seen an explosion of indignation over social media, with many saying “it is insupportable” to live without water in such stultifying temperatures.
Campers in the local campsite say they have been ‘filling up bottles’ whenever they find water coming through the taps. Sometimes the supply is so weak, the supply is just a trickle.
The sense of outrage has quickly turned political, with the public group ‘Costa da Caparica’ posting: “In name of the population that endures days without a drop of water, in the middle of the sumer with beaches full, pensioners, children, restaurants and hotels collapsing, we would like to offer the mayor of Almada a bucket and a tap. They are not simply objects. They are symbols of our resistance, our forgotten thirst and the absence of response by someone who should be on the ground, and not on holiday. Thank you Inês de Medeiros, we are once again without water!”
Source material: Correio da Manhã/Facebook
