This mega-city is running out of water. What will 22 million people do when the taps run dry?

"We are at the edge of the precipice," José Luis Luege Tamargo, a former national water commission director now affiliated with the opposition, told a radio interviewer. "We are going to find ourselves in a situation that we won't be able to respond to."

Allies of the left-wing president dismiss such talk as alarmist propaganda.

"There is no Day Zero, that's a falsehood, fake news from the conservative opposition," Mexico City Mayor Martí Batres, a member of the ruling Morena party, told reporters last month. "The service of drinkable water in Mexico City is guaranteed in the short, medium and long term."

Scientists say a Day Zero anytime soon is unlikely. Even if persistent drought dries up the reservoirs outside town, the city still has reserves in its shrinking underground aquifer system, with hopes that coming rains will replace some of the year's losses and stave off disaster. But no one one disputes that Mexico City's water shortfall is getting worse.

The deficiency, experts say, stems from structural and climate issues that transcend politics.

Last year was among Mexico City's hottest and driest on record. Scientists cite El Niño conditions linked to climate change.

Drought and evaporation have left the far-flung Cutzamala reservoir system — which supplies Mexico City and environs with about one-third of its water — at less than 40% of capacity, almost half of historic levels at this time of year. Authorities began curbing distributions last year.

And massive leaks in Mexico City's crumbling, 8,000-mile-long pipeline grid, regularly damaged in seismic shifts, further drain reserves. An extraordinary 30% to 40% of the water pumped into the aging system is lost to leaks and another culprit — illicit connections. Lawmakers have vowed to crack down on what they say is a growing number of individuals and gangs tapping illegally into water ducts.

"We cannot allow huachicoleo," Mayor Batres told reporters in January, using a term normally reserved for clandestine siphoning of gasoline from pipelines.

But many are desperate, as the water tankers — most holding about 2,600 gallons — quickly run out as they make their rounds to scorched colonias such as the outlying precincts in the Iztapalapa district, home to almost 2 million people.

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