Cape Town is facing a dystopian future – on 12 April, dubbed Day Zero, the South African city is expected to become the world’s first major metropolis to run out of water.
“For weeks, residents of South Africa’s second most populous urban area have been forming long lines to collect water every day,” ABC News reports.
Cape Town plans to shut its pipe network and instead designate 200 water collection points once dam levels reach 13.5%.
The city’s four million residents will then be allocated 25 litres of water a day.
Some residents are stockpiling water from natural springs, while others are believed to be turning to the black market.
“This should be a wake-up call for city authorities and national governments around the world,” says the Financial Times.
“Many of the world’s largest cities are acutely vulnerable to the effects of climate change – longer droughts, heavier rainfall, rising sea levels, fiercer wildfires, worsening air pollution and searing heatwaves.” As the crisis worsens, The Week investigates how life without running water might look.
Meanwhile, Cape Town’s population has grown by almost 80% since 1995, from about 2.4 million to an estimated 4.3 million.
According to Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille, 60% of Capetonians are “callously” using more than the current recommended limit of 87 litres per day.
The South African says bottled water company SAB has offered to provide the Western Cape government with nine million litres of bottled water for public distribution from the day taps in the province get turned off.