Cape Town is by no means the first to face a crisis
Catalan capital city Barcelona has probably come closest to a complete shutdown
Cape Town is by no means the only city in the world to have faced a water crisis.In 2015 São Paulo, Brazil’s financial capital and home to 22m residents, nearly hit the wall when its main reservoir dropped below 4% capacity. A drought that began in 2014 was the cause but the UN accused the authorities of not planning properly. São Paulo was losing 31% of its treated water to leaks and theft.However, Catalan capital city Barcelona has probably come closest to a complete shutdown. In 2008, during the worst drought since records began, its reservoirs dropped to less than a quarter of normal capacity, forcing the city to truck in water supplies from nearby Tarragona and from French city Marseilles.The Guardian said the decision to pump in water nearly sparked a "water war" between socialist stronghold Catalonia and the southern Spanish regions of Murcia and Valencia, which had been denied a similar request years earlier. In May 2008, rain finally arrived.Melbourne also faced a crunch, d...
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