CHENNAI, INDIA—The last train that carried water into the parched city of Chennai rolled out of town Oct. 9, almost four months after officials declared the city at “day zero”—with no water for a population of more than eight million people. For those months, people lined up to get their allotment of water brought from the countryside by rail car or by tanker truck. Fights broke out, and worldwide attention was focused on this, the first major city in the world to go completely dry.
Learn how Cape Town, South Africa avoided its 'day zero'.