The break in the main water pipe “which connects Basse-Terre to Grande Terre” in Guadeloupe still deprives nearly 80,000 people in the communes of Abymes, Goyave and Gosier.
“Of the 130,000 people impacted yesterday, the situation of 50,000 of them was resolved or improved during the day,” said the prefect of the Guadeloupe region.
According to the prefect of the Guadeloupe region, this rupture in the pipe is due to "malicious acts" on the drinking water network of the overseas archipelago.
Three “sabotage” operations were reported.
#Press release #Water pic.twitter.com/TDaG90cFBB
— Prefect of Guadeloupe (@Prefet971) March 24, 2024
At the request of town halls and the prefecture, 132 pallets of water were distributed on Saturday to people deprived of water, the press release added.
Investigations were opened on Saturday for “aggravated destruction and endangering the lives of others”, the prosecutors of Pointe-à-Pitre and Basse-Terre announced earlier in a joint press release, without specifying the nature of the damage.
“These acts also caused difficulty in the functioning of several health establishments, including the University Hospital.
The territorially competent gendarmerie brigades have been seized of the judicial investigations, opened for aggravated destruction and endangering the lives of others", announced Xavier Sicot and Caroline Calbo, respectively Public Prosecutors of Basse-Terre and Pointe- à-Pitre.
If this time, it is acts which are at the origin, Guadeloupe experiences, due to decades of deleterious management and dilapidated networks, regular water cuts.
Since the end of 2021, a single authority has tried to resolve the problems but is experiencing numerous political and financial dysfunctions.