As a major Indian city runs out of water, 9 million people pray for rain
As a major Indian city runs out of water, 9 million people pray for rain
Workers carry the last bucketful of water from a small pond in the dried-out Puzhal reservoir on the outskirts of the Indian city of Chennai. (Arun Sankar/AFP/Getty Images)
By Niha Masih and Joanna Slater at the Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/06/28/major-indian-city-runs-out-water-million-people-pray-rain/?utm_term=.94e52a74e06b
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The daily travails of millions of people in Chennai are a harbinger of things to come for the country, warn experts, who say India faces a looming water crisis as its population grows, urbanization intensifies and global temperatures rise.
“This year it is Chennai,” said Samrat Basak, a water expert at the World Resources Institute in India. But “Bangalore, Hyderabad and Delhi are all facing similar water scarcity,” he said. Together, the four cities are home to about 60 million people, the United Nations estimates.
India is the world’s largest user of groundwater — an underground resource that excludes lakes and reservoirs. Twelve major urban areas have been using groundwater at an unsustainable rate since at least 2013, according to data provided by the planning arm of the Indian government.
“This is a man-made crisis,” said Sekhar Raghavan, director of the Rain Center in Chennai and a longtime expert on the city’s water issues. As Chennai has grown, natural water bodies have been squeezed and polluted by the expanding metropolis. Like much of India, the city relies on yearly monsoon rains for its water needs. If the rains fail again this year, “Chennai will be unlivable,” Raghavan said.
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= new reply since forum marked as read
if something isn't done immediately, though it's probably already to late. 
