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More than 2.7 million Cubans do not receive piped water, according to the INRH

The state institute lists Havana, Santiago de Cuba, Matanzas, Artemisa and Holguín as the worst affected provinces, with half a million residents in the capital alone, according to Martí Noticias; OnCuba reported the same national figure from state television.

More than 2.7 million Cubans do not receive piped drinking water, according to the state National Institute of Hydraulic Resources (INRH), cited by Martí Noticias. The report lists as the worst affected provinces, in that order, Havana, Santiago de Cuba, Matanzas, Artemisa and Holguín.

OnCuba had reported the same figure, more than 2.7 million people with service disruptions, based on INRH information broadcast on state television, and attributed a 'very large' weight to a rupture in a main pipeline of Cuenca Sur, Havana's biggest supplier. In the capital, half a million residents are affected, especially in Boyeros, Habana del Este, Cotorro and the central municipalities, according to the INRH as cited by Martí Noticias.

The public Facebook group 'Víctimas de Aguas de La Habana', with more than 17,800 members, collects residents' complaints. A user identified as Yarileisi Mejías wrote that her daughters will not return to school 'until the water comes back in Old Havana', because 'all the uniforms and everything are dirty'. Another, Mabel Viña, a resident of Cojímar, said her area 'does not count anywhere, not even for a water truck, not for anything'.

Martí Noticias also reported that Havana resident Javier Alfonso Lozano Echevarría denounced on Sunday '51 days without water in the Las Piedras neighbourhood of San Francisco de Paula', approaching, he said, the record of 61 days they had already reached. User Verena Rosa Delgado wrote that Calzada de Diez de Octubre had gone more than 15 days.

The Havana Water Company attributed the deterioration of the service, in an October 31 Facebook note, to the increase in blackouts during the final days of the month, which caused 'a considerable increase in supply cycles across all municipalities and in the affected population'. In Pinar del Río, the Aqueduct and Sewerage Company admitted it is 'materially impossible' to guarantee a constant service to the city because the main pipeline operates at only 50% of its capacity.

The crisis is pushing people towards private solutions: drilling wells, building cisterns, installing tanks or so-called 'water thieves'. Kevin Martínez, owner of a restaurant in Matanzas, told the AFP news agency he had to pay to drill a well: 'On several occasions we had to close the place because we had no water (...) and that is what brought us to the point of having to drill the well'.

Sources: Martí Noticias · OnCuba · Martí Noticias

Data updated: 2026-11-02T19:00:00.000Z

More than 2.7 million Cubans do not receive piped water, according to the INRH | Yamacoa Observatory