South Africa plans to declare the drought that’s gripping the western and southern parts of the country a national disaster.

Cape Town, the South African city contending with the worst drought on record, has pushed out the estimated date on which it may have to turn off water supplies to residents by about four weeks to May 11, as use by farmers declines.

Measures that the government has put in place to curb the crisis include early-warning systems, new boreholes, water restrictions, desalination projects and demand management, Cooperative Governance Minister Des van Rooyen told reporters Thursday in Cape Town.

Declaring a national disaster would lay the basis for financial and humanitarian aid by the government. The Northern Cape, Western Cape and Eastern Cape have declared provincial disasters, Van Rooyen said as quoted by Bloomberg.

Agence France-Presse reported that Cape Town is in the grip of a catastrophic three-year-long drought as winter rains have repeatedly failed causing dam levels to drop to dangerously low levels.

South Africa's second city is now facing the prospect of having to turn the taps off under a so-called "Day Zero" scenario to conserve the city's remaining water supplies. Zero Day is the day when city officials will be forced to cut off the normal water supply to 75 percent of the city's homes -- more than one million households.

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