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India's Sixth Biggest City Is Almost Entirely Out of Water 264

Posted by BeauHD from the supply-and-demand dept.
Millions of people are running out of water in Chennai, India's sixth largest city. The Chembarambakkam reservoir and the three other reservoirs that have traditionally supplied Chennai are nearly all dry, leaving the city suffering from an acute water shortage. CNN reports: Due to an inability to collect sufficient rain water combined with low groundwater levels, the Tamil Nadu state government has been struggling to provide water to residents. With the reservoirs dry, water is being brought directly into Chennai neighborhoods in trucks. Every day, hundreds of thousands of residents have no choice but to stand in line for hours in soaring summer temperatures, filling dozens of cans and plastic containers. With supplies strictly rationed, many wealthier families have taken to relying on expensive private water tankers. Although the municipal body has worked to prioritize low-income households, residents who book government water tankers could still wait up to a month. It's not immediately clear how many are without water in Chennai presently.
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India's Sixth Biggest City Is Almost Entirely Out of Water More

India's Sixth Biggest City Is Almost Entirely Out of Water

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  • Population size (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Viol8 ( 599362 ) on Saturday June 22, 2019 @06:16AM (#58803468) Homepage

    Its about time the indian government started to do something about the rampant population growth in its country as its soon about to overtake china as the most populous country. Not only does overpopulation mean problems such as this when resources become scarce but its also devastating to the enviroment and wildlife. Unfortunately they seem to be still stuck in the victorian mindset that the more kids the better.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by religionofpeas ( 4511805 )

      Its about time the indian government started to do something about the rampant population growth

      Looks like they are doing just that.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Yup, Indian politicians don't give toss about ordinary folks. To the upper casts, the lower casts are subhuman. If the lower casts starve or die of thirst or disease, it is their own fault due to bad behaviour in a previous life. The Hindu system is conveniently cruel - convenient for the rulers - not so great for the suffering masses.

        • The original caste system was a horizontal hierarchical structure, classified by occupatione.g.ironsmiths, traders, etc passed down through generations.

          What you are spouting about is an aberation, a distortion (driven partly by the human tendency to oppress the weaker) also propagandazied (if thats a word) by invading Christian missionaries and British/European colonists.

          As far as I can tell, the vertical western socio economic structure is as oppressive, the poor get ad badly trodden on by the wealthy.

          Als

    • "Its about time the indian government started to do something about the rampant population growth in its country as its soon about to overtake china as the most populous country."

      What do you suggest?

      Forced sterilizations?
      1 Child policy with Concentration Camps for Violators?
      Culling the lower classes?

      "Not only does overpopulation mean problems such as this when resources become scarce but its also devastating to the enviroment and wildlife. Unfortunately they seem to be still stuck in the victorian m

      • "Its about time the indian government started to do something about the rampant population growth in its country as its soon about to overtake china as the most populous country."

        What do you suggest?

        In his novel "The Wanting Seed", Anthony Burgess described a society where the one-child policy was rigidly enforced - Dog help anyone who had twins or triplets -, where homosexuality was the social norm, and everybody lived on the edge of starvation because of failing crops. Odd book, and worth a read.

      • India already had and still has forced sterilization programs. [wikipedia.org]
        The only difference is that they've switched from rounding up men in the streets back in the '70s to mass sterilizations of women today.
        It took years of court battles to finally get sterilization camps to START CLOSING. Back in 2016. [theguardian.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Unfortunately they seem to be still stuck in the victorian mindset that the more kids the better.

      One of the side-effects of religion. They always try to grow from the insides, because then the new followers get indoctrinated for free. And religious leaders do not care whether they kills a lot of people that way, after all their cause is by definition "good" and "sanctified by God", so whatever they do is justified.

      In actual reality, getting global population growth to zero pretty soon is a critical factor for the long-term survival of humanity. Hence if they produce a few million dead here that would a

      • Fertility rates in most of the world (except Africa) are already near or below replacement [wikipedia.org], so this is not really a concern. In Africa too they are dropping steadily, though at a ~40 year delay relative to other parts of the world.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          India as well? I thought they still needed a while to get there. That page says 2.3, that is progress. But it needs to be below replacement for a while to stabilize things. Still, it seems the human race is finally getting that mess under control.

    • Actually, it is known that India will overtake China. China had their 1 baby rule for several generations. At this time, their average age is up there, and they have an unstable male high population. As such, China's population is about to crash due to age and not enough babies to replace, combined with China's hatred for immigrants.

      India is about to have serious population issues.

    • They've already "done something". India's fertility rate has fallen to 2.3 [wikipedia.org] and is still falling steadily. Replacement fertility for the world is 2.33 [wikipedia.org] (not 2.1 or 2.0 because some people die before reaching reproductive age - the poorer the country the more such people). So India is currently right around replacement fertility. If it's not at sub-replacement already, it will be in a couple years. This means that in the long term its population will shrink not rise. Nothing more is needed to be done.

  • India is the Mexico of Asia (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 22, 2019 @06:23AM (#58803484)

    India is a typical failed nation.

    New Delhi wastes money on military satellites and nuclear weapons when most Indians live in poverty. By contrast, when Poland was an impoverished nation, Warsaw deliberately refused to spend money on military satellites and nuclear weapons; the Polish government spent most of its resources on economic development.

    Today, India remains economically poor, but Poland is relatively wealthy.

    Among the Russian elites, supporters of Vladimir Putin use India to justify rejecting democracy. They point to the poverty and poor governance in India. They recommend autocratic China as a model for Russian development.

    Get more info [blogspot.com] about this issue.

    • Re:India is the Mexico of Asia (Score:5, Interesting)

      by gtall ( 79522 ) on Saturday June 22, 2019 @07:36AM (#58803646)

      Sheesh, using Poland is a bit silly. They were in the Warsaw Pact until it finally blew its bits in 1989, it was defunct by then since the other countries spiraled out of Moscow's orbit (Putin is trying to lasso them back in before Russia implodes from his ineptitude). After they emerged into the modern world, they had to concentrate on getting their economy on its feet. Spending money on the military would only have encouraged Moscow to play the same games it is playing in Ukraine. Ukraine and Byelarus were until recently lapdogs of Russia and they are right next door to Poland. Poland wasn't stupid enough to invite Putin's aggression.

      Currently, Poland is in NATO, they are not about to go off on their own creating nukes.

      That said, New Delhi does waste money on military satellites and nukes. However, they live in a dangerous part of the world. Pakistan is run by a bunch of insane Muslims. China periodically tries to steal bits of territory from India. Then there are the rest of the Stans in S. Asia.

      India's biggest threat is their Hindu fanatics who are attempting to rewrite the history books to generate a Hindu golden age that they can all point back to when they need to justify their latest aggression. Those nutjobs are no better than the Muslim nutjobs running Pakistan.

    • Poland only has money because they are by far the largest net recepient of the EU subsidies. And they do waste money, trief to build a bloody stealth tank a few years back.

      • Poland only has money because they are by far the largest net recepient of the EU subsidies.

        Well . . . maybe India could petition the EU to join . . . but that would be a bit of a stretch. The EU even balked with Turkey, which was 50/50 but now with an Islamist government, that is off the table.

        What really helps Poland, is that they are next to relatively wealthy Germany. Any Pole can just hop on a train from Breslau (Wrocaw) to Frankfurt and stomp around looking for a job, all legal . If you go to a big construction site in Germany, you will probably hear more Polish than German.

        India does n

    • Mexico City's water problem is due to unplanned suburban growth after a major earthquake. It's faster & cheaper to build new homes on greenfield sites than it is to rebuild destroyed areas, so after a major disaster, you USUALLY see explosive growth in a former suburb, then years of gradual cleanup & redevelopment in the destroyed area.

      Mexico City had plans to expand water & sewage lines to the area, but that takes decades of planning & construction... in an area that ended up with explosive

    • India's economy has been growing at 7-8% [wikipedia.org] the last few years, one of the highest rates in the world. The tech economy is booming, and infrastructure is finally being built at a steady rate (i.e. Delhi has built one of the world's largest subway systems in the last 15 years). India started from a low point, but it is steadily making up for that. It's on the same growth curve as China, just delayed by 10-20 years.

  • that crown royal mindset (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    all the depopulationers have it.

  • 3 Liters/Day+ Per Person (Score:3)

    by mentil ( 1748130 ) on Saturday June 22, 2019 @06:45AM (#58803522)

    An entire family in one of Chennai's slums gets just 30-40 liters (about 8-10 gallons) of water every day,

    Assuming an extended family of 10 people, that's ~1 gallon per person per day, for the 20% of the city's population living in the slums.

    I dunno about you, but if I skip bathing, I could live off 1 gallon per day and be able to drink plenty enough to stay hydrated, and do a reasonable amount of cooking (maybe skipping the soup or the stockpot). Some water-dependent businesses like hotels and restaurants are in trouble, but it's survivable (for now at least.)

    Water mismanagement and climate change are blamed by the article.

    • Re:3 Liters/Day+ Per Person (Score:5, Informative)

      by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Saturday June 22, 2019 @07:18AM (#58803596)

      "I dunno about you, but if I skip bathing, I could live off 1 gallon per day and be able to drink plenty enough to stay hydrated, and do a reasonable amount of cooking (maybe skipping the soup or the stockpot). Some water-dependent businesses like hotels and restaurants are in trouble, but it's survivable (for now at least.)"

      I guess you also don't wash your clothes and go piss and shit in the street.
      I guess you imagine yourself with grilled steak and an ice-cold Perrier and a good reason not to eat vegetables.
      Most of them are vegetarian, soup and stock and curries are what they do.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by godrik ( 1287354 )

        And let's not forget that the weather in Chennai is 105F at 99% humidity. So skipping bathing, clothe washing, or dish washing is not really an option.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dryeo ( 100693 )

      It's as hot as fuck there. I can drink a gallon of water when the temperature is only in the high 20'sC, in the 40'sC, I'd likely drink a couple of gallons.
      It's also nice to have a bit to rinse the sweat off when the temps are so high.

    • Skipping bathing isn't a very good option.

  • This is going to kill a lot of people (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Kiuas ( 1084567 ) on Saturday June 22, 2019 @06:46AM (#58803524)

    I suspect the reason the Indian government is reluctant to give out numbers of those afflicted by the water shortage is that they're keenly aware many of them are going to die. Chennai is pretty huge, with a population of 4,6 million people and according to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] 'bout 29 % of those people are living in slums. That's about 1,3 million people living in abject poverty. Let's do some rough math here. The temperatures in Chennai routinely exceed 30 Celsius (86 Fahrenheit) during summer. At those temperatures people need at least 2 liters (half a gallon) of water a day, likely more, but let's go with that for now.

    2 * 1,3 million = 2,6 million liters (or 680 000 gallons) a day just for the poorest in the city. Google tells me that the capacity of water tanker ranges from 20 000 L to 40 000 L (5500 to 11 600 gallons). Let's be generous here and go with the upper limit of 40 000 L. That's 65 tankers each and every day just to meet the bare minimum for the poorest in the city. The actual number of trucks needed to supply the whole city is 3-4 times that, probably more seeing as many of the trucks are likely smaller, and this is not even accounting for any of the industrial or agricultural operations that also need water to function, so in actuality the need is much, much higher.

    When you factor in the chaos going on in Indian cities of this size daily with traffic, the logistical puzzle that needs to be solved here to avoid mass deaths due to dehydration is massive. The Indian army may be able to provide the basic logistics needed for the supply chain and distribution, but I have no idea how far the water needs to be hauled from. Every mile increases the costs, and I have no idea how much money the Indian government is able or willing to allocate to the project.

    As the climate heats up, these kinds of situations are going to become more and more common, especially closer to the equator. The old saying goes that any society is 2 meals and 24 hours away from anarchy, but with water, the fuse is even shorter.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Viol8 ( 599362 )

      Indian railways are pretty extensive. I wonder if they could transport water into the city centre that way?

      "The old saying goes that any society is 2 meals and 24 hours away from anarchy, but with water, the fuse is even shorter."

      Probably true but ultimately irrelevant as - unlike with a lack of food - the anarchy would be very short lived as most people die within a few days without water and in the indian heat probably far less time so there would be a day or 2 of rioting then silence.

    • Re:This is going to kill a lot of people (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Antique Geekmeister ( 740220 ) on Saturday June 22, 2019 @07:06AM (#58803572)

      Sewage normally uses considerable amounts of water, even if much of it need not be drinkable. Failing sewage in a high pupulation density area is a health disaster ready to kill thousands if not millions.

    • > As the climate heats up, these kinds of situations are going to become more and more common, especially closer to the equator.

      Sorry, no. I know it's bad for the apocalypse mythology of Environmentalism but Antarctica is under 2 miles of freshwater ice and the Sahara has become a desert, when it was recently a jungle, under the "cool Earth" regime.

      We are suffering from a Dry Earth because of the cold. Go back to the Jurassic when CO2 was 3500ppm and most of the planet was covered in thick, lus

      • We are suffering from a Dry Earth because of the cold. Go back to the Jurassic when CO2 was 3500ppm and most of the planet was covered in thick, lush jungles.

        Ever tried to live in the jungle? Or a rainforest? It's moldy. Also, 3500 ppm is way more than enough CO2 to cause negative health effects. Even 1000 ppm is enough to affect your ability to think [thinkprogress.org].

  • Is it a choice? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by AndyKron ( 937105 ) on Saturday June 22, 2019 @08:28AM (#58803770)
    If we don't get control of our population mother nature will do it for us.

  • The very first thing that needs to happen is to shutdown non-essential industry as manufacturing uses lots of water.

    People donâ(TM)t need to work - they need food and water. They need to conserve their energy and water consumption.

    Next, go to the companies that are using the water and deep wells and commandeer their water supplies as this is a National emergency if they havenâ(TM)t done so already.

    Coke and Pepsi know you need customers to sell their products to. And, gouging the population will n

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by asylumx ( 881307 )
      Parent is modded troll but honestly, reading the comment, I don't see any trolling going on there. I don't know whether these ideas are the best but they certainly aren't trolling anyone.

      • Thank you. I wasn't trolling.

        I suspect someone got bent out of shape because I suggested limited water to even the rich and my comment about corruption and bribery.

        What's happening there is horrible. Many will die.

  • Checklist (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    1. Stop population growth
    2. Stop wasting money on space program and militarization, redirect resources to population relocation and water recycling infrastructure
    3. Build desalination plants
    4. Don't send those millions to Europe, NA, and Australia. We don't want them and have our own problems.

  • Two years ago (Score:3)

    by kenh ( 9056 ) on Saturday June 22, 2019 @05:56PM (#58806038) Homepage Journal

    Two years ago I read about this very issue in another Indian city (Bangalore) - this is not a new problem.

    Wired article from 2017: https://www.wired.com/2017/05/... [wired.com]

  • This is a serious issue all around the globe. That includes Developed nations. We need to push desalination of ocean water and to quit POLLUTING our waters.

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