The state-owned company reports 200,000 affected citizens, while the population claims the figures ignore the true impact.
14ymedio, Havana, April 21, 2026 — A group of residents in Luyanó, in Havana’s Diez de Octubre municipality finally mnaaged to get a water truck from the authorities this week after days without a drop of water service. “They only sent it when they went to the government’s offices, a young resident told 14ymedio, describing the area’s hardships.
“When I took the dog out, there were some neighbors a few blocks away arguing over a water truck,” he continued. “If we continue without service, things are going to get intense: people tolerate power outages better than a lack of water.”
On April 18, the Havana Water Company announced a break in a 48-inch pipeline of the Cuenca Sur water supply source, forcing the interruption of pumping since the early morning hours. This has affected large areas of the Plaza de la Revolución, Cerro, Diez de Octubre, and Boyeros municipalities. As a result of the break, water service in Central Havana and Old Havana was reduced to a regulated level.
The effects have been felt in neighborhoods closest to government offices, such as Nuevo Vedado, in the Plaza de la Revolución municipality, where the 14ymedio newsroom itself has suffered the consequences, receiving only a few hours of water supply per day.
If we continue without service, things are going to get intense: people tolerate blackouts better than a lack of water.
On Reina Street in Central Havana, residents have been forced to choose between washing clothes or washing dishes, given the impossibility of doing both with the limited water supply. The situation has even forced the temporary closure of food businesses in the area, which cannot operate without water.
On April 17, the official media acknowledged in a press conference a “complex situation regarding the water supply in the capital.” Official figures presented by directors of Aguas de La Habana (Havana Water Company) indicate that around 200,000 Havana residents are affected, equivalent to 11% of the capital’s population. “A problem perhaps not so alarming in purely numerical terms,” writes Tribuna de La Habana, “but certainly very complex and stressful.”
On social media, residents of Central Havana are also denouncing the severity of the situation. “It’s been 25 days without water,” wrote a resident identified as Haila Barani, on Monday, who recounted that a water truck refused to sell her water, claiming it was intended “only for vulnerable cases.” “I can’t bathe, I can’t drink water, I can’t cook,” she lamented. The woman says she has had to make do with just three buckets of water.
“I ask Aguas de La Habana if they have invented anything to be help us survive without water”
In neighborhoods like Luyanó, the consequences of these interruptions worsen an already unsustainable situation. The lack of transparency in information about distribution schedules and the absence of effective alternatives, such as water deliveries by tanker truck, are frustrating residents, who have repeatedly expressed their outrage through protests. “I ask Aguas de La Habana, have they come up with anything to help us survive without water?” a resident of Guanabacoa questioned yesterday in a Facebook comment.
State authorities admit that in several territories delivery cycles have become unsustainably long, to the point that in areas like Aldabó, in the municipality of Boyeros, residents can go nearly a month without receiving water.
“The disruptions practically cover all of Havana’s localities, except Plaza, Marianao and Centro Habana, which are not so exceptional exceptions, since in some neighborhoods or specific areas of these territories there is instability in the deliveries,” admitted the general management of the Havana Water Aqueduct at a press conference.
Reactions to the published official statement reveal situations that the authorities do not communicate, or completely ignore: “Guanabacoa is not mentioned and in the high areas there has been no water for more than 15 days,” writes one commentator.
The day they turn on the water, they cut off the electricity and it’s impossible to pump water to fill the tanks.
“It is very serious, since in addition to the problems of leaks in Cuenca Sur and Palatino, we have the fact that on the day they turn on the water, they cut off the electricity and it is not possible to pump to fill the tanks,” says another, and adds: “In Víbora Grande, the water comes in every three days according to the plan and this has not been fulfilled several times consecutively in these months.”
The official statement described the disruptions as ranging from total water shortages to increasingly longer distribution cycles and recurring service failures. Among the causes cited were pumping equipment breakdowns, responsible for 40% of the interruptions, followed closely by blackouts at 39%, and to a lesser extent by breaks in pipelines and leaks.
The managers of the water system have insisted that any improvements will depend largely on the stability of the electricity supply. They promise the installation of new pumps and generators at various points in the city, and the repair of equipment, without providing specific timelines and provoking the same skepticism among a desperate population.
The severity of Havana’s water supply crisis has reached a critical point, causing growing frustration among the population. Recent breakdowns only highlight the dysfunctionality of a hydraulic infrastructure that has suffered from years of deterioration and lack of maintenance.
The enthusiastic promotion that Aguas de La Habana disseminated yesterday, Monday, about the digitization of its services with online payment as a “modern” technological advance “to minimize stress,” seems to ignore that the population faces a more urgent difficulty today: the need to access the most basic resource to exist.
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