Leonardo DiCaprio Has Spoken About Chennai’s Water Crisis & Now We Can Finally Pay Attention

Now that Leonardo DiCaprio has warned us about the fate of Chennai, we'll suddenly understand the gravity of the situation.

By: Entertainment Desk |
June 26, 2019 4:14 pm

Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio is using his fame to direct the world’s attention towards the ongoing water crisis in Chennai. Rarely active on social media, The Revenant actor took to Instagram to post a picture showing many colourful vessels around a well in Chennai, and wrote a post describing the dire circumstances before signing off with – ‘we can change the world’.

View this post on Instagram

#Regram #RG @bbcnews: “Only rain can save Chennai from this situation.” A well completely empty, and a city without water. The southern Indian city of Chennai is in crisis, after the four main water reservoirs ran completely dry. The acute water shortage has forced the city to scramble for urgent solutions and residents have to stand in line for hours to get water from government tanks. As the water levels depleted, hotels and restaurants started to shut down temporarily, and the air con was turned off in the city’s metro. Officials in the city continue to try and find alternative sources of water – but the community continue to pray for rain. Tap the link in our bio to read more about Chennai’s water crisis. Getty Images) #chennai #watercrisis #india #bbcnews

A post shared by Leonardo DiCaprio (@leonardodicaprio) on Jun 25, 2019 at 1:42pm PDT

Why is Chennai facing this ‘crisis’?

In the past month, Chennai has witnessed its most alarming water crisis in recent memory, after all of the city’s four main water reservoirs began to run dry. This has resulted in long queues in front of water distribution units being offered by the establishment scrambling for both short-term and long-term solutions. Most hotels and restaurants have shut down, the city’s metro lines have shut down the air-conditioning. This BBC report suggests that most officials are pinning their hopes on a generous monsoon, which might only be the only way to replenish those reservoirs at such a short notice.

Leonardo DiCpario, the part-time environmentalist

Notorious for being media-shy unless he has a movie to promote, DiCaprio has been vocal about the environment. Producing two documentaries – 11th Hour and Before The Flood, DiCaprio even went so far ahead to weave the threat of climate change into his Oscar-acceptance speech in 2016. He mentioned how his film crew had to fly all the way the Southern tip of Argentina, only to find snow as dense as Alaska.

Chennai’s water crisis is only the beginning of problems, if physicists and environmentalists are to be believed. The rapid urbanisation in most cities in India, the fate of Chennai could befall on any of the other metropolitan cities. And now that a Hollywood star has warned us, most of us will suddenly understand the gravity of it.