KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — Jamaica’s environment minister says a serious drought is intensifying on the Caribbean island with water supply systems already well below normal.
In a Sunday night address, Robert Pickersgill told Jamaicans the government is trucking water to farming districts where parched conditions have withered crops.
Many Jamaican small farms lack irrigation systems and depend entirely on rainwater. But rainfall has been scarce for months and inflows into reservoirs are significantly reduced.
Pickersgill says some systems have “dried up entirely.”
He says weather projections are also grim for the next rainy season starting in October. In his words, the “already serious water supply situation we are experiencing will most likely worsen.”
Two weeks ago, the government announced that wasting water was illegal.
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