RESIDENTS in Kuwadzana have approached the High Court seeking an order directing Harare City Council to supply them with water through bowsers after constantly failing to adequately provide it via its pipes.

The Urgent Court Application is in response to a cholera outbreak centred in the high-density suburb and a national disaster as declared by the government.

"I must highlight that the provision of adequate, constant, clean and potable water by the First Respondent to residents, particularly in times of public health emergencies is both a statutory and constitutional imperative," reads Wellington Mariga's application which is being handled by the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR).

"The provision of water is critical to alleviate the cholera outbreak and to guarantee non-recurrence of the disease.

"The 1st Respondent has for many years failed in its duty to provide adequate, constant, clean and potable water to the residents of Harare, Resultantly, cholera outbreaks have frequently occurred in Harare. Some residents have not received any water supplies at all and have had to rely on shallow wells and boreholes for water.

"The erratic water supplies to the suburbs of Kuwadzana have left me and other residents at high risk of contracting cholera. The consequences are too ghastly to contemplate and I say so for pertinent reasons which I will explain hereunder.

"The situation clearly demands extraordinary interventions to improve the water supply. Amongst interventions which could be critical is the immediate deployment of water bowsers to those areas with little to no access to adequate, constant, clean and potable water."

Cholera has killed just above 100 and affected over 5,000 across the country.

It has been reported in all ten provinces of Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe's water crisis has been instrumental in the recurrence of the disease that reportedly killed thousands in the 2000s and hundreds two years ago.