Batam residents protest as data centres grow and their taps run dry

Hundreds of people in Batam, an Indonesian island near Singapore, have protested outside a data centre park. They say their homes have had no running water for months while the facilities have kept their servers cool, the BBC reported.

The protest took place on October 5 at the gate of Nongsa Digital Park, according to environmental news site Mongabay Indonesia.

Protesters, many of them women from the village of Bakau Serip, carried empty water jugs and blocked workers from entering, it reported.

“Not a single drop has come through our taps for the last three months… Our water supply had been reliable until the data centres came,” protester Dewi Susanti told the BBC.

Residents now rely on tanker trucks, she said, and some pay for drums of water that last a single day.

BP Batam, the agency that runs trade and industry on the island, denies that household...

Copyright of this story solely belongs to thenextweb.com. To see the full text click HERE