Felipe Delgadillo holds on to his shopping bags tightly. He has his reasons: he is sitting on the tip of a Civil Protection boat and below there is more than a meter of sewage. Now, for something as simple as shopping, working or even going to the bathroom, the residents of Culturas de México, in Chalco, depend on the boats provided by the Government of the State of Mexico. It is that or crossing the sewage that has flooded their neighborhood and another dozen around. The municipal government estimates that 2,000 homes have been affected, in total, more than 7,600 people. The collapse of the drains, due to dirt and heavy rain, has prevented the water level from going down after three weeks. Felipe, 61, thanks the officials who have transported him with some soft drinks and waves goodbye before entering his house: the water is already up to his knees.
The locals say it was a strong storm, but nothing more. In a region where it rains continuously for more than three months, the downpours are not scary, even though they have been fighting against floods for years. However, they do not remember anything like what happened on the night of July 26. The water rose, rose, and never went down. Since then, like domino pieces, one tragedy has brought others.
Respiratory, digestive and skin diseases have skyrocketed, residents have diarrhea and fungus on their legs, babies have hives. The drains are constantly gushing dirty water; they cannot turn on the taps to wash their hands, or wash dishes, or clothes. They cannot shower or go to the bathroom either: the toilet cannot be flushed. More than 1,100 people have been evacuated—they have gone to stay with relatives or to one of the three shelters set up—but many do not want to leave their homes and leave them at the mercy of looting. Pedro, Diego and José Dagoberto have lost their jobs. They were unable to get to work on the construction site, or to the warehouse, or to the salesroom on time: they depended on government boats to get them to solid ground if they did not want to arrive wet and dirty. The bosses forgave them one day, but not again. Like them, many families have been left without their only source of income, in a town where 60% of the inhabitants already live in poverty.
Chalco, located about 30 kilometers from Mexico City, grew about three decades ago to accommodate the waves of inhabitants who came to work in the capital. Now, more than 400,000 people live in the municipality, many scattered among the hills, in irregular and crowded buildings. However, the Culturas de México neighborhood is a perfect grid, located in the lower part of the town. That location, says Pedro Rodríguez, is one of the problems. All the water, from rain and from the drains of the neighborhoods above, reaches them. And it doesn’t go away anymore, because it has nowhere to escape. He shows photos of his wooden living room, where the dark water ripples between the upper drawers. He saved the microwave, but the refrigerator and the stove have already gone bad. The same story is repeated on every block of the Culturas de México neighborhood, the most affected.
The water is almost waist-deep in the home of Flor Fabiola Flores, 39, who lives with her children and mother: “You can’t see the toilet anymore.” She goes out every day in rain boots to go to work at her security post, and to return with food to the top floor of her home, where they have been living for three weeks. She shows the spots on her body and admits that she is afraid of infections. Nurse Daniela Pareja, from the Cuatro Vientos Health Centre, is part of the medical teams deployed by the Government to care for the residents. The main thing, she says, is to vaccinate them against tetanus and pneumococcus. Flor believes that the worst thing is the stench: “The smell makes us want to vomit.” “My house smells like you are in a public bathroom,” says Diego Castañeda, 27. The stagnant water in her house reaches up to her navel: “The worst thing is that the level does not go down, but keeps rising.” Everyone is demanding solutions from the government of Morena member Delfina Gómez.
A 50-meter plug
The main obstacle is a gigantic garbage plug — 50 meters long and 2.4 meters in diameter, according to the State of Mexico government — that is blocking the Solidaridad Collector, the central pipe through which waste is drained in the municipality. The state government has been trying to clear it for three weeks, without success. Water is also being moved with pumping machines to other points. But the rain is not letting up. “Some water is removed, it rains and it fills up again,” explains a member of the Army, assigned to clean up the area. The military, state agents and Civil Protection agents with whom this newspaper spoke estimate that there are still two more weeks of work to do.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said in his morning press conference that it is a “structural, fundamental” problem: “Because it is a drainage system with very limited dimensions, very small, which was overflowed. In addition, there are also garbage problems. In other words, it is a drainage system with a very small diameter for all the rain that has been falling. It is also a low-lying area. A fundamental solution needs to be found, but it is already being addressed and we will continue to do so.”
This main pipeline has been plagued by many problems in its more than 30 years of use, explained the mayor of Chalco, Miguel Gutiérrez, in a statement. In addition to the blockage, the collector has three sinkholes and several “counter-slopes of up to 2.2 metres”. “With a length of three kilometres, it receives combined water from the municipalities of Chalco and Valle de Chalco”, explains Gutiérrez, who points out that the infrastructure, built during the administration of Carlos Salinas de Gortari, was designed for a much smaller population. “27 years ago, houses were built irregularly on the collector, which has made repair and maintenance work more complicated since then. The current characteristics of this infrastructure do not allow for the effective evacuation of water, which has caused flooding for approximately 14 years”, he points out.
The collector is an old and well-known problem. In November 2022, with Alfredo del Mazo’s PRI at the head of the State Government, a mega-project of 115 million pesos (about six million dollars) was announced to remodel it, lengthen it and facilitate the exit of water. It was to be ready in eight months, local and state authorities said at the time. However, the work was stopped and is still at 40%. Now, for the residents of Chalco, it is too late.
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