News · Society
A five-liter water bottle sells for 2,000 pesos in Luyanó, where the pipes are dry
In the Havana neighborhood of Luyanó, where the pipes have been dry for over a week, a private shop sells a five-liter bottle of water for 2,000 pesos, 14ymedio reports. In Mulgoba, in Boyeros, residents have gone 45 days without water, according to CiberCuba.
In Luyanó, a private shop displays on top of a refrigerator a five-liter bottle of purified water with a handwritten price: 2,000 pesos, or 400 pesos per liter. In the neighborhood the pipes have been dry for more than a week, according to 14ymedio.
"All my clothes are dirty, my mother has hepatitis and there isn't a drop of water in my house, not even to drink," a young woman told the paper after going around the neighborhood's shops on Monday and ending up in front of the 2,000-peso bottle. The water carriers, who deliver in tanks and sometimes with pumps to reach upper floors, are now working with waiting lists.
In the Mulgoba district of Boyeros municipality, residents have gone 45 days without drinking water and no local government official has explained why, according to the complaint neighbor Alexis Torriente posted on Facebook on Monday and reported by CiberCuba. Torriente is proposing a neighborhood collection to buy two submersible pumps.
CiberCuba traces the cutoff to the shutdown of the "Lola" water source for lack of electricity: Havana's water system depends on electricity for 87-88% of its pumping, so every blackout cuts the supply. On top of that came a breakdown in the main Cuenca Sur pipeline in August and a fault in 110-kilovolt lines in October.
The lack of water has already led to protests: in Fontanar a pots-and-pans protest was put down in September, with about ten patrol cars and at least two people detained, and in late October residents blocked Boyeros Avenue with garbage containers, according to CiberCuba. In Luyanó, a neighbor was calling out on Monday for people to take to the street: "What we have to do is all go out into the street, all of us, not just a little group."
Sources: 14ymedio · CiberCuba
Data updated: 2026-11-03T04:15:00.000Z