Worst Drought in 80 Years Leads to Water Rationing in Brazil

In the midst of the worst drought in 80 years, residents of Ito, Brazil are hijacking water tankers and burning buses to protest more than nine months of severe water rationing.

“The water turned on at 3 AM,” said resident Elaine Borges, after two weeks of dry taps. “We jumped up to wash our clothes and dishes, and at 6 AM it was turned off and it hasn’t come back since.” An hour away, in the financial capital of Sao Paolo, more than half of the city’s 12 million residents have had their water cut at least once in the last month.

“The main reservoir feeding the city has become a dry bed of cracked earth,” reports Climate Progress. “Volume is so low that authorities had to build two miles of pipes in order to salvage the remaining water.”