2023-09-27 20:02:59
Living without water has become the daily life of the Mahorais subject to regular water cuts which should be further reinforced by the State. The authorities took stock of the serious crisis hitting the small French archipelago in the Indian Ocean during a “water resources monitoring committee” chaired by the Minister Delegate for Overseas Territories, Philippe Vigier, in travel to Mahorais territory this Wednesday and Thursday.
The poorest department in France is subject to its worst drought since 1997, while its supply depends largely on rainwater. Rainfall deficits are aggravated by a lack of infrastructure and investment in a territory which, under pressure from illegal immigration particularly from the neighboring Comoros, is experiencing demographic growth of 4% per year.
Still “six to eight weeks” of effort
To deal with this, the state has intensified water cuts in recent months. Since September 4, the population of Mayotte (310,000 inhabitants on January 1, 2023, according to INSEE) has been deprived of water two days out of three. “With the current water towers, we will no longer have water in the hill reservoirs [ouvrages de stockage] end of October,” warned prefect Thierry Suquet on Wednesday during the monitoring committee meeting. Emergency work was undertaken (drilling, leak detection, interconnection of networks, etc.), without hope of responding to the difficulties in the very short term.
According to the prefect, “the question will arise in the days to come about the evolution of the water towers, otherwise we will find ourselves at the end of October with between 15,000 and 20,000 cubic meters” available per day, while daily needs are estimated at 43,000 m3, “and there will be almost no more water in the south during this period if we do nothing”. “We still have six to eight weeks during which we will ask everyone to make an effort” before the return of the rainy season, added Thierry Suquet.
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