SHIMLA, India: Indian police on Wednesday were forced to escort water tankers through the streets of Shimla as an unprecedented shortage sparked brawls and desperation in the Himalayan hotspot popular with the rich and famous.
The mountain getaway is generally crowded with vacationers but hotels are closing and tourists being told to stay away as a crippling water shortage pinches the picturesque retreat. Anxious residents have been waiting for hours in queues hundreds deep to collect water, filling buckets at tankers guarded by police.
"We all know for the past fortnight the situation is so bad that people are getting water barely once in a week," Sanjay Chauhan, a former mayor of Shimla, told AFP. Shimla, the erstwhile summer capital of British India, requires around 42 million litres per day but often suffers water shortages in the summer.
But supply has dipped by nearly half this year, sparking what residents say is the worst shortage in living memory. The mountainous northern state of Himachal Pradesh endured record-low snowfall during the winter which experts say is responsible for taps running dry earlier than usual.
But some residents in Shimla, the state capital, say water has been syphoned off to hotels for the well-heeled or to VIP estates. Protests outside the chief minister’s home late Tuesday turned violent, with demonstrators clashing with police and chanting slogans against the local government.
The state’s highest court has asked for an explanation from authorities and a plan for managing the crisis. But critics say the water scarcity underscores the strain placed on Shimla every summer as tens of thousands descend on it.
A social media campaign urging tourists to avoid Shimla until the crisis passes has gone viral online. "Don’t visit Shimla this year, let the place breathe for a while, it’s overcrowded and exploited to the limits," reads the campaign slogan circulating on social media platforms like WhatsApp.
After Joe Biden’s 2020 election win, Warsaw did not officially recognise him as US president for several weeks
“If you tell this story anywhere in Europe, no one is going to believe you,” Magyar said
Many Panamanians streaming out of voting stations cited graft as one of their main concerns
The previous longest baguette of 132.62 meters was baked in the Italian city of Como in June 2019
The village is in northwest of onetime Ukrainian stronghold of Avdiivka which Russia captured in February
Lauga reached out to police early on April 28 and an investigation is underway, she said in an instagram post