The second largest city in Mexico, where more than 5.3 million people live, has suffered since the beginning of the year from a drought that is now classified as "extreme" and that has reached its peak this month.

With temperatures exceeding 40°C, its inhabitants have to manage to survive with only six hours a day of pumping drinking water, a restriction never seen before and implemented by the authorities to ration what is left in their dams.

The reserves are practically dry, like the Cerro Prieto or La Boca dam with less than 5%.

As if that were not enough, there are days in stores when you cannot find bottled water to drink, even in the richest neighborhoods of an industrial city that has always prided itself on having a level of development higher than the rest of Mexico.

Why do you say that Monterrey reached its "day zero"?

People in Monterrey do not have water at this time to wash clothes, to use in the bathroom. Most homes are only receiving batches of water. It's what they have left in the dams.

This year something extraordinary is happening in Monterrey, a city that has never run out of water. Right now it has a water deficit of more than 31 million cubic meters.

Day zero is also the time when you must change the paradigms of the way in which water is being used, so that you know that you must treat it to recycle and filter it. But it is something that is not being done.