Caracas celebrates 454 years in chaos: power outages, water shortages and alarming growth of gangs

This Sunday July 25, Caracas celebrates its 454 years. However, the people of Caracas do not have much to celebrate: the anniversary comes at a time when Venezuelan capital crosses unprecedented wave of violence and suffers from deterioration of public services more and more dramatic.

Violent streets

In recent weeks, shootings between criminal gangs and the police have paralyzed daily life in much of the capital

In mid-July, to show that he is trying to control the dramatic situation in the Venezuelan capital, the dictatorship who drives Nicolas maduro carried out a large-scale operation in the Cota 905 district and the areas of La Vega, Santa Rosalía, El Paraíso, San Juan and El Valle.

The regime tried with little success to stop the advance of increasingly powerful criminal gangs. Among these is that of Carlos Luis Revete, alias “el Koki”; Garbis Ochoa Ruiz, alias “el Galvis”, and Carlos Calderón Martínez, alias “el Vampi”, all charged with murder.

Amid the clashes, several local media reported that several neighbors and traders were injured by stray bullets.

Neighbors’ lives are “crippled” and “something as simple as going to throw the garbage” they can’t do it, said EFE a resident of the Santa Rosalía district, west of the capital. “What’s in me is uncertainty because I don’t know what’s going to happen”said the young man, who stressed that he avoided approaching the windows of his apartment for fear of a stray bullet, especially in “the main room (which) faces the street”.

According to the latest report from the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence, Caracas retains one of the top spots as one of the most violent cities in Venezuela with a rate of 52.8 violent deaths per thousand inhabitants.

Impaired utilities

Caracas also suffers from constant failures in public services, especially with regard to the water supply. In different sectors of the capital of Venezuela, the inhabitants of Caracas are constantly protesting against the shortage of potable water that can last for days, weeks and even months.

According to the calculations of City monitor, Caracas receives on average 56 hours of water out of the 168 in the week, or 65% of the time without the service. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that a person needs 100 liters of water per day to meet their needs.

As stated at EFE the civil engineer and former president of Hidrocapital José María De Viana, the system is operating at a fraction of its installed capacity. 20 years ago, 20,000 liters per second were received and currently only 12,000 liters per second are received, which represents a 40% deficit.

The lack of water in Caracas for a few years has pushed its inhabitants to seek independent solutions such as finding water in natural reservoirs or to drill deep wells so that the water comes out of the tap again. A temporary and risky solution, because the water found is not always optimal for consumption.

“In this area, neighbors have to fetch water from a natural spring every day. It is located in the lower part of the district. To get water, people have to go down with the water pipes, make a huge queue to fill the cans. In total, one person has to descend and climb a thousand steps for each trip. It is a physical effort that the elderly cannot do, ”he told the newspaper. The stimulus, Carlos Reina, a neighbor of the parish Catia sugar, located west of Caracas.

Experts assured that the Venezuelan state did not do maintenance and renovations in the city’s water distribution systems, they do not work properly and in addition the constant power outages.

In In June, a power outage left much of Caracas and several states in the country without power. In September last year, another major blackout left much of the capital and neighboring states without power. On this occasion, the power supply was not normalized in certain sectors of the capital for nearly three days.

The terrible electricity service affects, among other things, the operation of the metro, commerce and running drinking water. Against this increase the protests of the population.

“Organized neighbors, not only in northern Caracas, but across the city, have come together to demand quality public service. Particularly in the fields of electricity, fixed and mobile telephony, the distribution of drinking water and the collection of solid waste. We use protests as defense mechanisms, ”he said. The stimulus Carlos Julio Rojas, coordinator of the Front of Defense of the North of Caracas.

Affected health system

Service issues also affect the city ​​health system. In Caracas there are 16 hospitals and also a network of popular clinics, located in Catia, El Paraíso, El Valle and Caricuao. There are also some 75 or 80 outpatient clinics and modules of the Barrio Adentro mission, as Pablo Zambrano, president of the Federation of Health Workers (Fretrasalud), explained to the same media.

But the service is far from quality. “Of all this health structure that exists in Caracas, only 20% provide quality service,” denounced the expert. “The rest have serious failures in both utilities, such as water and electricity, and also a lack of equipment, supplies and staff. Infrastructure repairs are not being carried out, and in these times of pandemic, there is no protective equipment against covid-19 ”.

And as if the proofs of the terrible Chavist management were not enough, the Chavist dictatorship persecutes opponents in all corners of the Venezuelan capital.

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