Viruses run rampant across Havana as water, power fails

Viruses run rampant across Havana as water, power fails HAVANA, Sept 30 - Cuban housewife Yuamilka Hechavarria was asleep last Tuesday when water rushed into the cistern of the crumbling tenement where she lives in old Havana. She jumped from bed, scrambling in the darkness of a blackout to top off a bucketful before the tap went dry. It was the first time her building had seen water in two months.

This scenario plays out in neighborhoods across Cuba's capital of Havana daily, where power outages exacerbated by a US oil blockade have crippled the already crumbling infrastructure that supplies water to the city's nearly two million people. Many regularly go without running water for days or weeks.