Authorities call for “savings,” while residents demand urgent infrastructure investments.
14ymedio, Havana, May 6, 2025– Named for the prickly pear cactus that thrives in arid climates, Las Tunas is today facing one of the most severe droughts in its recent history. This situation has aggravated the already critical vulnerability of the country’s driest province, where the average annual rainfall is barely 1.038 millimeters (25.4 inches).
The local press reports this Tuesday that there are divers currently working in the El Rincón reservoir to install a floating outlet which, according to the authorities, will improve the water supply to the provincial capital. Most alarmingly, shortages affect not only households and industries but also particularly sensitive sectors such as public health.
The El Rincón reservoir, with a capacity of 22 million cubic meters (77.7 cubic feet), currently stores only about 6 million (212 million cubic feet). Given this situation, the authorities have chosen to reiterate the usual “call to conserve water” in each home and workplace, as reported by Piedad Herrera, director of the Aqueduct and Sewerage Basic Business Unit of the municipality of Las Tunas, in telephone statements to Periódico 26, the official media of the province.
Pumping from Piedra Hueca has also been stopped due to a transformer failure
To further aggravate the situation, pumping from Piedra Hueca has also been stopped due to a transformer failure. Nor do the alternatives offer guarantees: from the La Cana basin, of the 50 liters (13.2 gallons) per second that could be pumped, between 20 (5.28 gallons) and 30 (7.93 gallons) are lost on the way to the city due to leaks in the distribution network.
More and more Las Tunas residents think that it is not enough to call for conserving water or waiting for the arrival of rain. They call for urgent investments in water infrastructure and more efficient management of resources, guaranteeing access to safe drinking water as a basic right for all citizens.
The effects of this crisis are not just immediate: the medium- and long-term consequences may be even more devastating. Alberto, a young farmer from the area, complains on Facebook: “The government is good at making diagnoses but terrible at offering solutions.”
More than 80% of the soils in Las Tunas are classified as being between regular and poor
The data confirm this. More than 80% of the soils in Las Tunas are classified as being between regular and poor, due to factors such as erosion, salinization, compaction and poor drainage. This deterioration has a direct impact on agricultural and livestock production, and threatens the food security of the region.
It is ironic that the name of the province comes, according to tradition, from landowner Jesús Gamboa, owner of a property famous for its thorny plants back in the seventeenth century. It was said that he gave his visitors one of his “brave tunas,” a symbol of protection against bad luck.
Today, the inhabitants of that land need more than amulets. It is not enough for the long-awaited May downpours to arrive. What Las Tunas urgently needs is a clear, coherent and effective policy of investment and management of water resources, which will finally break the cycle of abandonment that threatens to turn this piece of Cuba into a literal desert.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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