(CNN) — Every day, Morris Malambile loads his wheelbarrow full of empty plastic containers and pushes it from his house to the nearest tap.He's much further than the usual walk to the kitchen sink, a little less than a mile, but it's not the distance that bothers him.It's the bumpy road — winding between cramped shacks and beige council houses — that makes balancing the 70-litre water containers on their way back a pain."Home feels far away when you're pushing 70 kilos of water in a wheelbarrow," said the 49-year-old resident of the impoverished South African township of Kwanobuhle.Taps dried up in parts of Kwanobuhle in March, and thousands of residents have since relied on a single communal tap to supply their homes with drinking water.And the municipality is just one of many in the Nelson Mandela Bay area of ​​the city of Gqeberha that rely on a system of four dams that have been steadily drying up for months.It hasn't rained enough to replenish them.The Southwest's unbridled thirst for Colorado River water could prove devastating upriverA week ago, one of the dams was closed because the levels were too low to extract water: its pipes were only absorbing mud.Another is a few days away from being emptied.Now, much of the city is counting down to "day zero," the day when all the taps run dry, when no significant amount of water can be drawn.That will be in about two weeks, unless the authorities seriously accelerate their response.South Africa's Eastern Cape region suffered from a severe multi-year drought between 2015 and 2020, which devastated the local economy, especially its agricultural sector.It only had a brief respite before falling back into drought at the end of 2021.Like many of the world's worst natural resource crises, the severe water shortage in this area is a combination of mismanagement and distorted weather patterns caused by man-made climate change.Morris Malambile says that pushing a wheelbarrow full of water containers every day is “exhausting”.In addition, thousands of leaks throughout the system mean that much of the water that comes out of the dams never reaches homes.Maintenance deficiencies, such as the failure of a pump in the main water supply network, have only made the situation worse.For this reason, Malambile, who lives with his sister and his four children, has had no choice but to travel the municipality with his wheelbarrow every day for three months.Without this daily ritual, he and his family would not have clean water.“People who don't live here have no idea what it's like to wake up in the morning and the first thing you think about is water,” says Malambile.His family has enough containers for 150 liters of water, but each day he fills about half of it, while the rest stays at home.“Tomorrow, those are empty and I have to bring them back,” he said."This is my routine, every day, and it's exhausting."countdown to day zeroProspects for significant rainfall to help replenish reservoirs here look bleak, and if business continues as usual, around 40% of the sprawling city of Gqeberha will be left without running water.The Eastern Cape Province relies on weather systems known as “cut-off lows”.These slow-moving weather systems can produce rainfall of more than 50 millimeters (about 2 inches) in 24 hours, followed by days of persistent wet weather.The problem is that this type of rain has not arrived.The coming months do not paint a promising picture either.In its seasonal climate outlook, the South African Weather Service forecasts below-normal rainfall.This is not a recent trend.For nearly a decade, the catchment areas of the main reservoirs supplying Nelson Mandela Bay have received below-average rainfall.Water levels have slowly receded to the point that all four dams have a combined level of less than 12% of their normal capacity.According to city officials, less than 2% of the remaining water supply is actually usable.On the minds of citizens is the Cape Town water crisis of 2018, also caused by the previous severe drought and by management problems.Residents of the city queued to get their 50 liters of individually rationed water each day, in fear of reaching day zero.It never got to that point, but it came dangerously close.Strict rationing allowed the city to cut its water consumption in half and avoid the worst.And with little rain expected, the Nelson Mandela Bay authorities are so concerned about their own zero-day that they are asking residents to drastically reduce their water use.They just don't have a choice, said the township's water distribution manager, Joseph Tsatsire.“Although it is difficult to control the consumption of each person, we hope to send the message that it is crucial that everyone reduces their consumption to 50 liters per person per day,” he said.A poster urging residents to restrict water use in the suburbs of Gqeberha.To put it into perspective, the average American uses more than seven times that amount, at 82 gallons (372 liters) a day.Although some parts of the city may not feel the full impact of a potential zero-day, various interventions are being prepared to help residents of the so-called “red zones”, where taps inevitably run dry.Earlier this month, the South African national government sent a high-ranking delegation to Nelson Mandela Bay to take charge of the crisis and put in place emergency strategies to stretch the last of the city's dwindling supply.Leak detection and repairs were the focus, while plans are being drawn up to extract “dead storage water” below current levels from supply dams.In some places wells were drilled to extract groundwater.Some of the interventions, such as repairing leaks and trucking in water, mean that some of those who had lost their water supply to their homes are starting to get a trickle of water from their taps at night.But it's not enough, and authorities are looking for broader, long-term solutions to a problem that's expected to get worse the warmer the Earth gets.South Africa is naturally prone to drought, but the kind of multi-year droughts that cause so much misery and disruption are becoming more frequent.Consideration is being given to building a desalination plant—to purify ocean water for public consumption—although such projects require months of planning, are expensive and often contribute to the climate crisis, when powered by fossil fuels.The people of Kwanobuhle are worried about the future and wonder when the crisis will end.At the area's communal tap, Babalwa Manyube, 25, fills her own water containers while her one-year-old daughter waits in her car.“Flushing, cooking, cleaning…these are problems we all face when there is no water in the taps,” she explains.“But raising a baby and having to worry about water is a totally different story.And when will it end?No one can tell us."Adaptation at home to lack of waterIn Kwanobuhle, public housing is for people with little or no income.Unemployment is widespread and crime is on the rise.The streets are packed with residents scrambling for money.Old shipping containers double as makeshift barbershops.Across the subway is Kamma Heights, a leafy new neighborhood perched on a hill with a beautiful, uninterrupted view of the city.It is dotted with several newly built luxury homes, and residents can often be seen sitting on their balconies, enjoying the last rays of sunshine before the sun dips below the horizon.Some Kamma Heights residents are wealthy enough to secure a backup water supply.Rhett Saayman, 46, breathes a sigh of relief every time it rains and hears the water flowing into the tanks he has erected around his house for the past two years.His long-term plan to save money on water has proven to be an invaluable investment in securing his home's water supply.Saayman has a storage capacity of 18,500 litres.Water for general domestic use, such as baths, passes through a 5-micron particulate filter and carbon block filter, while drinking and cooking water passes through a reverse osmosis filter.Rhett Saayman stands next to one of his several water tanks at his Kamma Heights home.“We still rely on municipal water from time to time when it hasn't rained enough, but that can be two or three times a year, and usually just for a few days,” he said.“The last time we used municipal water was in February, and since then we have had enough rain to sustain us.”And he added: “Seeing how things are going in the city, it's a relief to know that we have clean water and enough to flush the toilet and shower.Our investment is paying off.”Residents in many parts of the Bay Area are being asked to reduce their consumption so that water can go through reserve pipes, which are temporary pipes placed in strategic locations so that water can be diverted to areas most in need.This means that some of the city's most affluent neighborhoods, such as Kama Heights, could see their water supplies greatly reduced, and they will also have to queue at community taps, as those in Kwanobuhle are doing.Looking ahead, local weather authorities have painted a worrying picture for the months ahead, with some warning that the problem has been left to fester for so long that reversing it may be impossible.“We have been warning municipal authorities about this for years,” said Garth Sampson, spokesman for the South African Weather Service in Nelson Mandela Bay.“If you want to blame politicians and officials for their mismanagement, or the public for not conserving water, it doesn't matter anymore.Pointing fingers helps no one.The bottom line is that we are in a crisis and we can't do much anymore."According to Sampson, the catchment areas that supply Nelson Mandela Bay need about 50 millimeters of rain in a 24-hour period for there to be a significant impact on dam levels.“If we look at the statistics of the last few years, our best chance of seeing 50mm events will probably be in August.If there is no significant precipitation in September, the next possibility will be in March of next year, which is worrying,” he said.“The only way this water crisis is going to end is with a flood.But luckily, or unfortunately - depending on who you ask - there are no forecasts that suggest rains of that magnitude soon.The-CNN-Wire ™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company.All rights reserved.This content was republished with permission from CNN.Need help accessing the FCC Public File due to a disability?Please contact Susan Rushkowski at publicfiledc@hubbardradio.com or (202) 895-5027.Copyright © 2022 by WTOP.All rights reserved.This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.