The state-owned company admits it faces difficulties in repairing the 78-inch pipeline for the Cuenca Sur water supply.
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 29 September 2025 — Women taking to the streets with their children and men with machetes forcing a truck driver to hand over part of his load: these two scenes reflect the desperation of Havana residents seeking water after several days without a supply. This Monday, police officers tried to dissuade a group of mothers from blocking Monte Street by grabbing their buckets and pushing them away, a few meters from Fraternidad Park.
Leading the demonstration was Magalys Anglada Mena, daughter of US-based activist Ariadna Mena Rubio. Moments later, a truck arrived at the scene, guarded by the police.
The protest, similar to one staged almost two years ago by other mothers nearby for the same reason, highlights the critical water supply situation in the capital, which has worsened in recent weeks and affects almost every municipality.
In El Vedado, a resident says, several men with machetes stood in front of a water tanker truck to block its path until it delivered water to them as well. “It’s not clear if it was privately paid for or if it was one of the few state-run trucks that come and deliver a little water and then leave,” the man says.
In many Havana neighborhoods, the sight of police officers guarding supply trucks is a common sight. And every morning, people are seen leaving their homes carrying empty buckets. “I don’t know where they get their water,” says an elderly woman from Old Havana. “I imagine they go to get it from a workplace or from the house of someone who has a cistern.”
“People are desperate because they don’t have water to drink, to wash, or anything,” laments Mary, a resident of Luyanó. “There are places that haven’t had water for ten days, others that have been without service for twelve days. We haven’t had water since last Monday. And I called today, and they told me they were going to pump it but didn’t know when.” There are numerous Facebook posts from Havana residents lamenting having to wear dirty clothes because they can’t even run a washing machine.
By the end of August, Mary says, there was trouble. “In my sister’s apartment building, a crowd of people forced the driver of a water truck that another neighbor had spent her money on to give them water as well. They wouldn’t let him go until the man did.”
In early September, official media acknowledged the city’s “complex water situation,” with a deficit of 2,500 liters per second, which was affecting “on a daily average” some 150,000 residents. Some interviewees said they had been without water for “at least three months,” and authorities mobilized 90 vehicles to deliver water to homes.
On the Aguas de La Habana Telegram channel, the few messages early Monday morning reporting the restoration of pumping in some locations gave way to a larger arsenal of communications about service interruptions. This Saturday, after several days of water outages to repair the system known as Cuenca Sur, the pipeline broke down again.
The following day, the state-owned company explained, “the final phase of replacing 250 meters of 78-inch pipeline at the Cuenca Sur water supply source was completed.” However, the company faced another problem: “When service was restored, a section of the same pipeline, upstream, which was also significantly weakened, collapsed.”
“When they installed them, they had a factory nearby to make them, but these communists shut it down because they said it was old technology.”
The statement asserts that this situation was “foreseeable,” but that a “thorough inspection of the well field could not be carried out because it would have required shutting down service to the entire system, which would have further impacted municipalities already experiencing supply difficulties. It was decided to move forward with repairs to minimize the initial inconvenience.”
The company remained optimistic and added that it views this as an opportunity to further strengthen the system, identifying another critical point. “In addition to replacing the pipeline, we are taking advantage of this opportunity to carry out another key action: the interconnection between wells 1 and 2. This interconnection will improve service to the municipalities in the central system,” the communication added.
However, a longtime Havana Water Works worker attributes the problems of the collapse of the Cuenca Sur pipeline, which was originally “built by the capitalists”—that is, before January 1959—to another issue. “The original pipes are made of cement-coated iron. When they were installed, they had a factory nearby to make them, but these communists closed it down because they said it was outdated technology,” he says.
And he continues: “Last week, they announced on the radio, television, and the internet that Cuenca Sur would be shutting down for three days to replace 50 meters of pipeline. They put out tremendous propaganda. Well, on Friday, they started the pipeline, and everything they had built broke down.”
A colleague of his elaborates: “The original pipe was 90 centimeters long. To bring it to the required diameter, they added two 45-centimeter PVC pipes. They made an iron nozzle on the sides at each joint and screwed them in, but it broke again because they have to use suction cups to prevent the water pressure from bursting the pipe again.”
Technically, it is possible to connect two 45-centimeter pipes to a 90-centimeter pipe for water supply, provided that appropriate fittings and components, such as flexible hoses and couplings, are used. Velocity, flow rate, and pressure drop must be properly calculated to ensure that the transition from two smaller-diameter pipes to a larger one does not generate excessive turbulence or a loss of hydraulic efficiency.
Something went wrong in Cuenca Sur, something Aguas de La Habana hasn’t reported. The state-owned company’s workers, in any case, “are mobilized,” the workers assert. “And in August, the DTI [Intelligence Directorate] installed a listening and monitoring center at the company,” one of them adds. Supplying the capital is now a matter of national security.
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