Fridoline Mtunguja, 56, has never been as busy during the 19 years he has delivered water across Dar-es-Salaam as he has been this past month.
“I am working morning until night,” said Mtunguja. “I have not seen a problem like this for a long time and we don’t know how long it will continue.”
At the start of November, authorities in Dar-es-Salaam declared a water shortage and began rationing throughout Tanzania’s largest city, home to more than six million people.
While mid-October spells the start of the short rains, the country has instead experienced record high temperatures and little rainfall – associated with climate change. In Dar-es-Salaam, temperatures reached 33.8 degrees Celsius (92.84 degrees Fahrenheit), an increase of 2.2C (4F) compared with the average temperature in November.
As a result, the city’s main source of water, the Ruvu River, has reached dangerously low levels – leaving Dar-es-Salaam with a deficit of nearly 100 million litres (26.5 million gallons) of water. While the Dar-es-Salaam Water and Sewerage Authority (DAWASA) initially estimated the rationing would last for a day, one month later many parts of the city are still without a regular water supply.
