In brief

摘要

1. South America's largest city, Sao Paulo, is in the grip of a severe drought that has led to a serious water shortage. The Catareira reservoir, which supplies around half of the city's water, was less than 10% full in September. The city's water utility Sabesp denies it has been rationing water, but has installed equipment to draw from the reservoir's 'secondary technical reserve' - water that is normally below the minimum abstraction level. An emergency plan provides for further abstraction of this water if the drought has not broken by November.