Pakistan's largest city thirsts for a water supply

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Pakistan's largest city thirsts for a water supply
By ADIL JAWAD
Associated Press
Aug 24, 5:30 AM EDT

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) -- On the outskirts of the slums of Pakistan's biggest city, protesters burning tires and throwing stones have what sounds like a simple demand: They want water at least once a week.

But that's anything but in Karachi, where people go days without getting water from city trucks, sometimes forcing them to use groundwater contaminated with salt. A recent drought has only made the problem worse. And as the city of roughly 18 million people rapidly grows, the water shortages are only expected to get worse.

"During the last three months they haven't supplied a single drop of water in my neighborhood," protester Yasmeen Islam said. "It doesn't make us happy to come on the roads to protest but we have no choice anymore."

Karachi gets most of its water from the Indus River - about 550 million gallons per day - and another 100 million gallons from the Hub Dam that is supplied by water from neighboring Baluchistan province. But in recent years, drought has hurt the city's supply.