14ymedio, Mercedes García, Sancti Spíritus, 10 November 2021 — After three years with leaks that lost up to 60 liters per second, Node 24, as the interconnection point of the supply network in the city of Sancti Spíritus is known, is finally being repaired. The work is planned to be solved in just two days despite the fact that it has been classified as “capital” by the authorities.
The intervention should have been carried out years ago, although it was announced for this July and finally occurred in November because other breaks in the hydraulic network compromised the arrangements, according to the local press. Now, the authorities have affirmed that “all the necessary resources are already in the province” to seal the breaks.
It is not the first time that repairs have been made at Node 24, located on First Street of the Kilo-12 district, although they are always superficial, acknowledge the Aqueduct and Hydraulic Resources officials. The “technical state of this system has worsened” and requires a major repair “considered highly complex and which will be developed without interruption to improve the supply to some peripheral areas and highest in the city.” The workers have had to work night shifts to complete the repairs.
“Every time you passed through First Street, you saw a large stream of water, it looked like a waterfall. They spent too long to fix that break,” a Kilo-12 neighbor told 14ymedio. “This line that is being repaired travels all over the city and it has been more than two years since it was going to be fixed but another break that left us without water for a week prevented maintenance,” he recalls. “Then the pandemic arrived and it was postponed.”
Despite the speed with which the Government intends to undertake the great work, for the residents it feels like eternity, since the supply of water by tanker trucks has not been guaranteed. 70% of the city’s residents will not have this alternative, which will only reach health care units and other centers classified as essential.
Most of the residents, who have been without service for more than 24 hours, had to store water and those who do not have many containers or tanks have to buy the liquid from other individuals to be able to do their housework.
“The Government has not developed a strategy for this interruption,” complains Yuli, a resident of the area who, like hundreds of people from Spiritus, must buy drinking water from people who have wells in their homes and sell water for 100 pesos a gallon of 55 liters.
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