Reservoir at a Third, Lagos Rations by the Hour

LAGOS — The Iju waterworks that feeds this megacity's northern wards sat at 34 percent of capacity on Sunday, and the utility has answered the way water-stressed cities now do: by the hour, not the day. Since the Global Concordat Council's emergency water session opened on 22 July under Secretary-General Ingrid Halvorsen, allocation has become an accounting exercise measured in minutes of pressure. "We do not turn water off. We turn it on, briefly, and everyone learns the schedule," said Adaeze Balogun, a district engineer who has kept the northern grid balanced through four dry seasons. The Tethys Hydrous Group, which runs desalination for the coastal wards, reports its plants at full draw and still short of demand. Hearth Relief International counts the arithmetic behind the queues: registered climate migrants are past 112 million this month, and the corridors that carry them run through exactly the cities whose reservoirs are thinnest. The session continues. The taps keep their clock.