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"What are we supposed to do? There's no water. I work in a shop, there's no water there. But forget about the shop, we don't have water for our kids."
There's no fresh water in the slums of Delhi's Chanakyapuri neighborhood. It's 121 degrees Fahrenheit, or 49.9 Celsius – the hottest temperature on record. Desperate people wait for drinking water to be delivered. When it arrives, there's chaos.
Dozens run to the truck, pushing in to get their containers filled with water. It's first come first served, and many people miss out. Mother-of-six Poonam Shah is one of those people.
"There are 10 people in my family – six kids, me and my husband, my in-laws, relatives come over sometimes – can we all bathe in one bucket of water?" she asks. Today her family may not even have one bucket. Poonam was working her street food stall when the water truck arrived. She tried to run back for it – but it was too late, the water had run out.
She'll now look to buy water – it'll cost up to half of the $3 she usually earns in a day selling samosas and other snacks.
As record heat grips northern India, the Delhi government has been forced to ration these free water deliveries. Previously, Poonam's neighborhood received two to three tanker deliveries per day. Now it's just the one.
Read more at the link in our bio.
📷: Vijay Bedi/CNN
