Cape Town - The City of Cape Town's water crisis is worsening.
Despite recent showers in the Mother City, dam levels have dropped 0.7 percentage points to 37.8% - 27.8% of which is usable.
Collective use remains far above the target of 500 million litres per day under Level 5 restrictions at 602 million litres per day.
A year ago, Cape Town residents were using around 1.1 billion litres a day, the City of Cape Town said.
Despite the drastic drop in consumption, the City said only 50% of the city's residents are actively trying to save water and cut usage.
"With this as our goal, the City’s staff – from engineers to front-line leak response teams and water call centre operators – are working day and night to ensure that we beat the drought together," Mayor Patricia De Lille said.
De Lille said a number of the City's emergency water supply augmentation plans were already under way to ensure the City doesn't run out of water.
"Several phases of our emergency augmentation programme are already under way. Last week the tender for the Monwabisi and Strandfontein desalination plants was awarded and this week the tenders for the Hout Bay, Dido Valley and the Harmony Park desalination plants will be adjudicated," De Lille said.
She reiterated her plea to all the city's water users to assist in saving water.
"We cannot do this without you and it is only through this partnership that we will be able to stretch our water supply to avert a true disaster."
To check how much water you're using, click here.
You can also visit the City's dedicated water crisis page here.
Residents can contact the City via email to [email protected] for queries about water pressure reduction, or to report contraventions of the water restrictions (evidence should be provided to assist the City’s enforcement efforts), or send an SMS to 31373.