Since Monday, November 25, access to water has once again been reduced on the archipelago to cope, say the authorities, with an increase in consumption. The tap is now cut off for up to two and a half days a week among the Mahorais.
Like a feeling of déjà vu in Mayotte. Since Monday, November 5, the island's inhabitants have been adapting to the new schedule published by the Mahoraise Water Company (SMAE) which provides, once again, for a tightening of water cuts. Previously cut off for 26 consecutive hours every two days, tap water is now inaccessible for 30 hours. That is, depending on the sector of the island, up to two and a half days per week with the tap turned off.
These “water towers”, to which the Mahorais are accustomed, aim to limit the increase in consumption which is estimated at 5% per year by state services, while the French archipelago is affected by demographic growth. record. At the end of the dry season, which usually extends from April to November, catchments in rivers and underground drilling are less efficient, forcing the island's two artificial basins, currently full between 30 and 40, to be overloaded. %.
In this context, “the reservoirs of the water purification units are emptying, which causes technical outages”specified the prefecture of Mayotte. These have also multiplied in recent weeks, in Mamoudzou and in the north of the archipelago. “The extension of water cuts will allow reservoirs to fill and avoid these technical cuts”underlines the prefecture.
Restrictions for gardens and swimming pools
On the night of November 11 to 12, a technical incident caused the shutdown of the Ourovéni water treatment plant, depriving half of the 321,000 inhabitants of water for more than twenty-four hours. On Thursday, the prefecture also published an order restricting the use of water. It is now forbidden to fill your swimming pool or wash your car outside of stations specially equipped for water recycling. Watering lawns and gardens is also prohibited from midnight to 6 p.m.
At the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024, tap water was cut off two days out of three to cope with an unprecedented drought. The late arrival of the rainy season, in January 2024, made it possible to gradually ease these restrictions, which were never completely lifted. It's been almost two years since the Mahorais have had tap water all week, without interruption from morning to evening, like the rest of the French.
