How ‘day zero’ water shortages in Iran are fuelling protests
Supply failures dramatic example of how climate crisis threatens basic human need - and with it political stability
Gripped by a terrible drought now entering its sixth year, Iran's cities are on the brink of what its meteorological organisation calls water day zero": the boundary beyond which supply systems no longer function. This was crossed by Chennai in India in summer 2019 and is now threatening Mashhad, Tabriz and Tehran, where taps in the city's southern districts had already run dry by early December.
Nightly pressure cuts", in which the water supply is halted to whole districts in the capital, have already become the norm. Protesters demanding Water, electricity, life - our basic right" over the summer were already risking a clampdown.
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