Zimbabwe's capital shut its main water works citing shortages of foreign currency to import treatment chemicals, the deputy mayor said, potentially leaving the city dry. An El Nino-induced drought has reduced water levels in the country's dams, including Kariba, which supplies the biggest hydro electricity plant and hit the capacity of cities and towns to supply water to residents.

Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe was feted as an African liberation hero and champion of racial reconciliation when he first came to power in a nation divided by nearly a century of white colonial rule. Nearly four-decades later, many at home and abroad denounced him as a power-obsessed autocrat willing to unleash death squads, rig elections and trash the economy in the relentless pursuit of control.