It all began on the 22nd, when the Costa Rican Institute of Aqueducts and Sewerage (AyS) received the first report.

The water smelled and tasted like gasoline.

That was the sensation in three cantons located northeast of San Jose: Tibas, Moravia and Goicoechea.

Complaints continued on social networks during Tuesday, Wednesday and all Thursday morning, until in the afternoon of this last day AyA and Health confirmed that the water was contaminated with a hydrocarbon. The Health Ministry and AyS personnel still do not know which chemical is contaminating the water that reaches these three cantons and also a sector of the central canton of San Jose, to which the problem has spread.

Neither does it know how the water is being mixed with the hydrocarbon.

The water that is reaching more than 100,000 people is not recommended for consumption, it cannot be used to prepare food or for personal hygiene and boiling it does not change the situation, they explain in an article published in El observador.cr.

The partial solution is the distribution of water in tanker trucks or in box cars with tanks on top, which distribute the liquid along the main streets of the communities.

In the most recent communiqué, the Health Ministry explained the actions that are being implemented, as a result of a strategic meeting held by the authorities this morning.

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