Chennai’s water crisis has gone from bad to worse in the space of a few weeks. 

India Today

The city has been struggling with depleting water bodies and a lack of rainfall. 

Sify

The situation is so bad that even actor Leonardo DiCaprio went on Instagram and posted a BBC report on the same. 

View this post on Instagram

#Regram #RG @bbcnews: “Only rain can save Chennai from this situation.” A well completely empty, and a city without water. The southern Indian city of Chennai is in crisis, after the four main water reservoirs ran completely dry. The acute water shortage has forced the city to scramble for urgent solutions and residents have to stand in line for hours to get water from government tanks. As the water levels depleted, hotels and restaurants started to shut down temporarily, and the air con was turned off in the city’s metro. Officials in the city continue to try and find alternative sources of water – but the community continue to pray for rain. Tap the link in our bio to read more about Chennai’s water crisis. (📸 Getty Images) #chennai #watercrisis #india #bbcnews

A post shared by Leonardo DiCaprio (@leonardodicaprio) on

Due to the water crisis in Chennai lakhs of people have now turned to water tankers as piped water is nowhere to be found due to drying lakes and depleted groundwater.

Indian Express

In March 2019, the Tamil Nadu government had declared drought in 23 districts in the state, including Chennai.

In the middle of a particularly hot summer, the four lakes that supply water to Chennai have dried up. Together they contain just 1% of the volume they did last year.

Manorama Online

The city has been receiving light showers from the southwest monsoon, but the Tamil Nadu government is still ramping up efforts to mitigate the crisis.  

Mind you, according to the NITI Aayog, 21 cities in India including Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad, will also run out of groundwater by 2020 affecting around 100 million people.