Bogotá: power failure knocks out four water tanks, leaving dozens of neighbourhoods in San Cristóbal dry
A fault in the power grid shut down four water tanks in south-eastern Bogotá on Monday. Taps ran dry in dozens of neighbourhoods in the San Cristóbal district. Many residents vented their anger on social media: nobody warned them, and it is unclear when the water will return.
What happened
The city's water and sewerage company EAAB said on Monday that a failure in the electricity supply, which grid operator Enel Colombia is responsible for fixing, had taken part of its infrastructure out of service. The San Vicente, Alpes, Quindío and Juan Rey tanks are affected; they supply drinking water to numerous neighbourhoods in the south-east of the city, from Guacamayas and La Victoria to Juan Rey, Tibaque and Yomasa on the border with Usme.
EAAB gave no timeline for restoring service. First the power has to come back, then the tanks need to be refilled and the distribution network stabilised. In the meantime the utility is sending tanker trucks to the affected areas, which residents can request through the 116 hotline.
The mood on the ground
According to El Tiempo, many residents voiced their frustration on social media. What angers them most is that the utility had announced only a planned cut in the northern district of Usaquén, while San Cristóbal went dry without any warning. Several publicly demanded an explanation from EAAB.
The outage comes on top of an already tense mood towards the utility. A few days earlier, El Espectador reported complaints that sewerage charges in Bogotá had risen by up to 43 percent; a city councillor highlighted bills of more than 500,000 pesos in low-income households, some even for empty homes. EAAB attributes the increases to a new national tariff methodology.
Voices from the media
Sources
This article was rewritten from local-language sources. Every statement about the mood is based on the linked reports.