The president of Cuba's National Institute of Hydraulic Resources, Antonio Rodríguez, said that interruptions in water networks affect 2,681,770 residents, 66% of them for electrical reasons and 25% because of broken pumping equipment, according to the EFE agency, in a text republished by the Paraguayan outlet ABC Color.

President Miguel Díaz-Canel called the water supply problem “grave and complex” and said that large-scale investments to solve it require time, while immediate difficulties are being addressed. The worst-affected provinces are Havana, with about 536,000 residents facing supply problems, and Santiago de Cuba, Holguín, Matanzas, Artemisa and Pinar, with about 200,000 each. Díaz-Canel attributed the problem to objective causes — the US blockade, the energy crisis, aging networks — and also to the “negligence, indolence and lack of coordination” of the authorities.