On Friendship Street in the northeast Chinese city of Harbin, hundreds of people carrying white canisters, red buckets, plastic bowls and cooking pots wait for a tanker truck. They have been waiting here in the bitter cold since early morning — though the water delivery isn’t scheduled until 11 a.m. Two police officers and three women from the neighborhood committee keep an eye on the crowd. Their job is to ensure that the water is fairly distributed when it arrives — at about five liters per person.
Other Harbin residents have lined in front of the Century Buddha Restaurant on Yilan Street. Twice a day, for an hour and a half at a time, the owner dispenses free water from his private well. Meanwhile, customers at a local supermarket make off with entire pallets of sparkling water and juice. “We are now frugal with water,” says a woman in a red woolen cap. “First we use it to clean vegetables, then to wash our hands, and finally to flush the toilet.”
The water emergency in Harbin, an industrial city of 3.8 million, comes on the heels of an environmental catastrophe with as yet unforeseeable consequences.
