Thailand, Bangkok: struggling to clear garbage in flood crisis

Garbage piled up on a flooded street in Bangkok, Thailand. Photo: Getty Images / WSJ

Industrial parks in Bangkok are being threatened after residents in Bangkok’s northeast demolish government-built levies to release the stagnant, garbage-ridden water that was building up in their neighbourhoods, writes the Wall Street Journal.

Flooded roads are preventing garbage collectors getting to many areas—raising fears over the risk of disease and over the blockage of drains, which is impeding the flow of water into the sea. Bangkok produces about 8,700 tons of rubbish a day—roughly a quarter of Thailand’s total. Added to that figure is the additional trash flowing into the city from northern provinces.

Tuvalu: state of emergency declared due to water shortages

The Pacific island nation of Tuvalu (pop. 10,544) has declared a state of emergency due to severe water shortages on 28 September 2011 after existing desalination plants broke, exacerbating an already dire situation. The Australian, New Zealand and U.S. Defence forces – together with the Red Cross – have set up emergency desalination plants on two of the country’s nine islands.

A Red Cross situation report said the former British colony relied mostly on rainwater, which had been scarce this year because of a La Nina weather pattern across the Pacific.

The government of Tuvalu said the water crisis was likely to last until at least January 2012, when there’s more chance of heavy rain.

For the latest updates on the Tuvalu water crisis visit ReliefWeb

Source: AFP / New Age, 03 Oct 2011 ; ABC / ReliefWeb, 17 Oct 2011 ; Drought – Information Bulletin n° 2, IFRC / ReliefWeb, 14 Oct 2011 ; ABC / ReliefWeb, 14 Oct 2011

China, Hangzhou: chemical spills taints city’s water supply, schools closed

Two separate pollution incidents have hit the drinking water supply of the Chinese city of Hangzhou (pop. 9 million), Zhejiang Province, in the beginning of June 2011.

In the first incident, the drinking water supply of more than half a million people was cut off when phenol (carbolic acid) spilled into the Xin’an river, creating a run on bottled water. A tanker truck carrying 20 tons of phenol, which had broken down, was hit by another truck as it was being repaired. The crash ruptured the tanker truck’s chemical tank and the leaked phenol was washed by rain into the river, which is one of the sources of Hangzhou’s drinking water.

Authorities temporarily shut down water plants and released extra water from nearby dams to dilute the spill. The concentration of carbolic acid near the accident site remained at more than 900 times the safe drinking level. Despite reassurances that drinking water in Hangzhou itself was safe, residents rushed to buy bottled water, leaving shelves in some supermarkets empty.

India, Uttar Pradesh: floodproof handpumps and toilets

Floodproof handpump in Bahraich. Photo: District Administration, District Bahraich, Uttar Pradesh, India

In Bahraich district of northern Uttar Pradesh, India, handpumps fitted on a raised platform were the only source of drinking water to the 400,000-odd people during floods. The idea for the raised handpumps was promoted by District Magistrate Rigzin Samphel and now serves as a model for other flood prone districts of the state. Samphel also helped to build flood-proof toilets for women in Bahraich.

Every year during the monsoons, when the Ghaghra river brims over, [and] desperate villagers end up drinking turbid floodwater. “The floods inundate all the wells, tube wells and hand pumps. So there’s no drinking water,” says Dharamraj, a 40-year-old farmer in [Sohras] village.

The result: widespread illnesses and even some deaths.

This year has been better.

Exactly 200 flood-prone villages in Bahraich district were fitted with four hand pumps each, the crude water fetching devices mounted on raised platforms rather than at ground level so they wouldn’t be submerged during floods. When the floods first came this year in mid-July, these hand pumps —the only source of drinking water to the 400,000-odd people in these villages — delivered clear and potable water.

Pakistan: sanitation crucial to survival for flood victims

Millions remain without proper sanitation in flood-affected Pakistan.

“Sanitation is ‘the invisible problem’ in disaster relief and by highlighting the problem, behaviour change happens,” according to Bill Fellows, the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) global cluster coordinator working with United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the WASH cluster lead agency.

Hygiene is four times as important as clean drinking water for preventing diarrheal disease according to research published in The Lancet medical journal [1]. Whilst in flood devastated Pakistan, access to clean drinking water is on the rise, thanks to the efforts of WASH cluster member agencies, with 2.5 million people receiving clean drinking water every day, the attention to sanitation has become critical in preventing disease outbreaks.

UNICEF, in cooperation with the government, is implementing hygiene education in relief camps through a “no open defecation campaign”. “This is based on a system developed in Bangladesh and helps affected communities take a first step to achieve basic sanitation in disaster affected communities”, said Fellows.

In addition, the hygiene education campaign includes teaching flood survivors to build open pit latrines. As part of the flood relief efforts 2,723 emergency latrines have been built, benefitting 40,000 people.

Female health workers and Pakistan Red Crescent volunteers are also on the frontline of hygiene education, which is one of the most critical components in reducing water-borne disease. To date, these volunteers have helped educate almost 750,000 people on the benefits of good hygiene.

To compliment hygiene education, soap and hygiene kits are needed. UNICEF reports 400,000 hygiene kits are in the pipeline along with three million bars of soap.

“It is crucial in disaster response that flood affected communities receive latrines and soap, as well as hygiene education to prevent illness and disease”, said Manuel Bessler, Head of the Office of Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Pakistan.

In addition to water and sanitation flood relief activities, UNICEF and its partners are engaged in an integrated approach to provide humanitarian assistance to millions of flood survivors through health and nutrition, child protection, education and prevention of child trafficking.

[1] The same conclusion can be found in a recent article by Cairncross et al. in the International journal of epidemiology

Read the latest Pakistan Floods WASH-related news on ReliefWeb

Related web site: Global WASH Cluster

Source: ReliefWeb, 14 Sep 2010

Philippines: lawmaker wants bottled water classified as ‘basic necessity’

An administration lawmaker pushed [on 13 August 2010] for the inclusion of bottled drinking water in the list of “basic necessities” under The Price Act, to protect the public against hoarding and profiteering during severe shortages, calamities and similar emergencies.

“Due to harsh climate change, the lack of essential water resources in general and safe drinking water in particular is bound to worsen in the months ahead,” Pasig City Rep. Roman Romulo said in a statement.

Whenever clean water becomes scarce due to a prolonged dry spell, or as an offshoot of widespread flooding, bottled drinking water would be highly susceptible to illegal price manipulation, he said.

Afghanistan: chlorination drive to avert water-borne diseases

Health workers in flood-affected parts of Afghanistan are trying to prevent water-borne disease outbreaks by chlorinating drinking water and promptly delivering health services.

Dozens of small health teams have been sent to areas mainly in northern and eastern Afghanistan hit by flash floods [at the end of July 2010], Health Ministry officials said.

Pakistan floods: Oxfam provides 100,000 people with clean water

[In the first week of the crisis, Oxfam was] delivering clean water to almost 100,000 people made homeless by catastrophic flooding in Pakistan.

In four of the worst affected areas of the Khyber Paktankhwa (formally NWFP) and Punjab Province, Oxfam and partners [repaired] damaged water systems and trucking drinking water to those stranded or displaced from their homes.

Oxfam’s Country Director Neva Khan said:
“We are providing water purification sachets to people who are reduced to drinking from ponds and dirty standing water. At the same time, we are training people on how to clean the water and how to stay as hygienic as possible in such a chaotic and dangerous environment.”

Nepal: specialists call for stronger measures to combat diarrhoea

Aid agencies are urging Nepal to implement stronger water and sanitation measures to prevent diarrhoea outbreaks, which claim hundreds of lives each year.

Ahead of next month’s monsoon season – the four- to five-month period when there is a spike in diarrhoea-related deaths – aid workers have been calling on the government to prepare for a deluge of cases.

“This is the period of water-borne disease, and there is a lack of effective awareness programmes, which has to be stressed a lot to reduce the outbreak,” said Richard Ragan, country representative of the UN World Food Programme, which is involved in public health education about safe drinking water and sanitation practices.

In 2009, there were more than 370 diarrhoea deaths, mostly in western Nepal, according to figures from the government’s Epidemiology and Disease Control Division (EDCD). There were more than 67,000 diarrhoea cases reported last year, most of them in 18 of the country’s 75 districts.

The east of the country is also vulnerable, with the number of children five and under who fell ill with diarrhoea increasing from 241 cases per 1,000 children in 2007, to 550 in 2009, the regional health directorate said.

Even before the monsoon has started, 15 people have died from diarrhoea-related causes in the last two months in five districts of western Nepal, according to the government.

Better preparation needed

The Nepal Red Cross Society (NRCS), the country’s largest humanitarian organization, is concerned that the mistakes of last year might be repeated: improper distribution of medicines, untimely reporting of cases and poor coordination with remote districts.

“Preparedness measures are the top priority of the government, but it needs to do a lot in terms of action in the field or we will be faced with a major disaster like last year,” said Pitamber Acharya, NRCS disaster director.

Acharya said the government needs to invest more in hygiene, water purification and safe drinking water supplies – the lack of which are the main causes of diarrhoea outbreaks every year.

“Simply giving health education and providing emergency response are not enough,” he said.

According to the latest UN Millennium Development Goal statistics, 89 percent of the population has access to improved drinking water sources – such as piped water into a home, a dug well, rainwater or bottled water – and 27 percent have access to clean sanitation.

Twenty-six districts across the country remain at risk from diarrhoea outbreaks, according to the EDCD. Some impoverished, food-insecure districts, where people survive on less than US$1 a day, endure the worst water and sanitation conditions, and health services.

Thir Bahadur, head of the Home Ministry’s disaster risk management unit, said the government has stocked medicines and formed rapid response teams in vulnerable districts to prepare for the monsoon.

Source: IRIN, 14 May 2010

India, Andhra Pradesh: funds sought to tackle water crisis in district

The district administration [in Kakinada] has sent a proposal for sanctioning Rs. 4.81 crores (US$ 1.1 million) towards the summer action plan for drinking water supply. Two hundred and fifty habitations have been identified for supplying water through tankers.

Priority is attached to getting repairs done to tanks and other infrastructure to ensure that drinking water scarcity is mitigated. The Rural Water Supply Department has been asked to make necessary arrangements to face the problems bound to crop up in peak summer months.

The Animal Husbandry Department has also been instructed to meet the drinking water needs of cattle. The Disaster Management Plan is being updated and sent to the government to avail of its financial assistance at the earliest so that the summer does not take its toll.

In Kapada district, the State government has sanctioned Rs. 1.43 crore (US$ 318,000) for mitigating drinking water scarcity during the summer months in Kadapa district, under disaster management funds.

Source: The Hindu, 31 Mar 2010 ; The Hindu, 31 Mar 2010