Due to water shortages, public calamity was declared in Santa Marta

The shortage of drinking water that Santa Marta faces this year led the city's mayor, Virna Johnson, to declare public calamity throughout the tourist district, in order to urgently launch actions to guarantee access to the precious liquid for samariums and tourists.

The decision was announced by the local president following a Municipal Council for Risk Management where the Public Utilities Company of Santa Marta (Essmar), headed by the intervening agent Yahaira Díaz, presented a report on the current situation of water collection and distribution in the city.

The meeting also talked about the difficulty that has arisen in the supply of water in different neighborhoods of the city, due to the low levels that they register in the rivers that feed the aqueduct.

Faced with the critical outlook, the municipal administration agreed to declare public calamity in the city, in order to speed up the delivery of resources to ensure emergency attention in the face of the shortage of this vital resource in the capital of Magdalena.

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After the end of the council, through her Facebook account, Mayor Johnson once again criticized the Superintendency of Public Services for the handling it has given to ESSMAR in view of its lack of actions to face the dry season that the city is going through.

In this regard, Johnson assured that, in view of the lack of planning by Essmar to face the drought season in Santa Marta, through the infrastructure management of the mayor's office, a schedule will be organized so that, during the next few days, water will be brought to the most critical points of the city.

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“Citizens have blocked roads in different neighborhoods of the city due to the lack of water (...) It was proved that they did not know how to face this crisis and that is why it is necessary that as a District we take urgent action to respond to the clamor of the population,” said the bourgomaster.

Regarding the declaration of public calamity in Santa Marta, in dialogue with W Radio, Councilman Jorge Yesid Ospino referred to this problem, noting that the decision took a long time to implement.

“Thanks to the management and demand that I exercised yesterday as city councilman, today the mayor has acknowledged that this declaration must be made to activate the contingency plans,” Councilor Ospino told the same media outlet.

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