CUMANÁ, Venezuela — Drinking water in Cumaná is reaching extremely low levels. Daily blackouts punish the city. The wind passes through the looted remains of its once illustrious university. Scavengers scour landfills for food scraps.
Much of Cumaná, a city in eastern Venezuela that was once a jewel of the country’s industrial base, has the appearance of a war zone marked by destruction.
Also read:
Continues after advertising
This coastal city is a world away from Caracas, the capital, which is on the cusp of a largely sheltered recovery from the decline affecting much of Venezuela.
After US forces deposed and captured former leader Nicolás Maduro in January, oil businessmen and cryptocurrency tycoons rushed to Caracas to explore business opportunities.
Cumaná tells a very different story — that of a devastated economy in the rest of the country, whose reconstruction could take generations.
In May, I drove through eastern Venezuela, on a full-day trip that passed through more than 20 military and police checkpoints, to see up close the living conditions outside the capital.
“You know those missile attacks in Ukraine they’re always talking about?” said José Luis Sánchez, 56, president of the Association of Economists of Cumaná, a business group. With a touch of dark humor, he added: “Sometimes we say our city looks like Kiev.”
It was not bombings that devastated a large part of Cumaná. Instead, single-party dominance, disastrous economic management and campaigns of ideological persecution are to blame, say people now openly expressing their dissent in the city of half a million people, as authoritarian restrictions on free speech in Venezuela begin to ease.
Continues after advertising
When Hugo Chávez came to power 27 years ago, Cumaná was among other industrial hubs, such as Ciudad Guayana and Valencia, helping to transform Venezuela into a regional power. The city was a center of the fishing and canning industry for the entire Caribbean basin, processing an impressive amount of the tuna and sardines consumed throughout South America.
Shipyards that built commercial fishing vessels prospered. Cumaná’s great pride was a Toyota factory that produced Land Cruisers, the legendary four-wheel drive vehicles that have become a fixture throughout Venezuela.
Then Chávez began a wave of nationalizations of private companies, a centerpiece of his plan to build a socialist economy under his control. Cumaná and the neighboring state of Sucre, a Chavista stronghold, became a laboratory for these initiatives.
Continues after advertising
The expropriations, initially aimed at ensuring domestic food security, ended up depriving the Cumaná canning industry of private capital. The drop in production in other state-owned companies in the country deprived the factories of what they needed most: metal cans.
Many canning factories now operate with difficulty, are temporarily closed or completely abandoned, such as one located in the Caigüire neighborhood, expanding Cumaná’s landscape of ruins.
Toyota’s assembly plant, repeatedly paralyzed by government-backed strikes and union standoffs, has gradually reduced its operations. The economy’s spiral into hyperinflation a decade ago ended up forcing it and the entire ecosystem of local suppliers to close.
Continues after advertising
With its manufacturing sector destroyed, Cumaná now depends, like much of the country, on the Venezuelan government to meet its most basic needs.
This new chapter is not going well.
A rockslide in February, inside a tunnel in the reservoir that supplies Cumaná, caused the collapse of the supply system.
Continues after advertising
Unable to solve the problem, authorities ordered a severe rationing program to preserve what little water could still be transported by trucks.
Scenes of chaos now accompany the arrival of these trucks, with residents begging — and sometimes screaming — to be able to fill gallons of plastic. Soldiers armed with semi-automatic rifles remain on standby to prevent clashes.
When public trucks do not arrive, private water trucks supply the demand. But inflationary pressures have caused water prices to soar, and a single 20-liter gallon can cost as much as $8 — a significant burden for families already surviving on low wages and a monthly government stipend of $240.
Those who cannot afford bottled water are forced to walk to public collection points or makeshift wells. Companies closed their doors. Schools have suspended classes because the facilities do not have water for basic hygiene and bathrooms.
Yamileth Sotillo, 43, a domestic worker who lives in Brisas del Golfo, an irregular settlement, said she hoped things would improve after U.S. forces captured Maduro in January and replaced him with Delcy Rodríguez, his vice president.
But the water crisis has made an already bad situation much worse, he said.
“Todavía no se ve queso en la tostada,” Sotillo said, using a popular Venezuelan expression that loosely translates as: “You still can’t see any improvement.”
In other words: nothing has changed so far.
Other residents of Brisas del Golfo said they were afraid to speak to a reporter. According to them, they still fear reprisals from the leaders of the Communal Council, the organizational structure that manages local governance in Venezuela and acts as the eyes and ears of the ruling party on the streets.
According to these residents, council leaders monitor social media posts and everyday conversations and can restrict benefits such as basic food or cooking fuel if they consider someone disloyal to the State.
Another tragic symbol of Cumaná’s dysfunction is the campus of the Universidad de Oriente, founded in 1958 as Venezuela entered a period of democratic renewal. Situated on a hill overlooking the Caribbean, it has become one of the most important marine research centers in Latin America.
Previously serving more than 15 thousand students, today it is largely in ruins. After it turned into a center of anti-government protests, local authorities retaliated about a decade ago by allowing looters to take items such as copper wiring, air conditioning units, sanitary facilities and pipes, according to former teachers and alumni.
When the protests gained strength again a few years later, the looting also returned.
Working at night, the invaders burned books to see what they were looting, former university officials said. One of these fires destroyed thousands of volumes from the Central Library, whose charred pages can still be seen today.
Now, building after building on campus appears to have been destroyed by drone strikes. Only about 2,000 students remain, studying in hastily constructed makeshift structures near the university entrance.
The collapse of water and education systems is just part of the problems in Cumaná, which claims the title of the oldest continuously inhabited European-settled city in South America, founded more than half a century before Caracas.
In an open dump near decaying hotels that once welcomed sun-seeking tourists, elderly people look for food, firewood and aluminum cans for recycling.
As in other parts of the oil-rich country outside Caracas, electricity is out for several hours almost every day.
This turns something mundane, like going to a shopping mall, into a surreal experience.
Around noon on a recent day, the Hipergalerías shopping mall garage was completely dark, forcing anyone arriving by car to use their cell phone flashlight to find their way.
Inside the mall, escalators and elevators had stopped working. Without air conditioning and with outside temperatures approaching 32°C, the enormous structure felt like a sauna.
Even so, some consumers circulated around the place. Most stores were without power, but a few that have their own generators remained open.
“Obviously this is terrible for business,” said Taís Mago, 35, manager of a restaurant in the mall that has to close its doors whenever blackouts occur.
In other parts of Cumaná, pro-government graffiti covers walls throughout the city, as if to remind people who is still in charge. Although images of Hugo Chávez have disappeared from much of Caracas, they are still omnipresent in Cumaná.
Among the slogans displayed are: “Tourism is the secret weapon of Venezuela’s new economic model.” “Hope is in the streets.” “When there is determination, nothing is impossible.”
c.2026 The New York Times Company
