Drinking Water crisis
Due to the geographical location, Sunamgonj is known as a low land district
surrounded by hoar and located at the foot of Meghalaya. Like any other disaster
Sunamgonj district faces a water disaster every year. The significant disasters are
flash floods, seasonal floods, river erosion, and arsenic pollution as well. Because of
these disaster people of this area faces the unbearable difficulty of safe drinking
water. Rich people somehow manage to get safe water, but low-income people
go through intolerable suffering for lack of safe drinking water.
About 97% of women of Sunamganj collected water from distant water sources as far as half akilometer away. The problem of groundwater quality is more acute in a low-lying area likeSunamganj, as the water level, is within 200ft to 400ft. Most of the population
uses groundwater as a major source of drinking water. The most common
contaminant in the groundwater is dissolved nitrate(NO3) owing to its high water
solubility. High nitrate concentrations in drinking water sources present a
potential health risk particularly to infants less than six months of age.
The presence of iron in groundwater is another acute problem for the Sunamganj
district area except for the Dharmapasha Upazila. Sunamganj area also has arsenic in
groundwater exceeding the Bangladesh standard.
The worth affected areas are Derai, Dharmapasha, and Jamalganj where more than 50% of hand/shallow tube-wells contain exceeding the standard level. This region also has a manganese problem in groundwater. In addition to the above chemical quality concern, there are also major microbiological quality concerns with the source water in the hoar
the region as about 62% of households of Sylhet division fetch drinking water from
sources containing E.coli bacteria which generate gastrointestinal disease like
diarrhea.
Successive floods in Sunamgonj contaminated hundreds of pure drinking water
sources like tub-well in low lands areas by creating a massive drinking water
shortage and causing huge water-borne diseases. The crisis of pure drinking water due to submerged tube-wells in different areas leading the flood-affected
middle-lower economic people to the inescapable health risk of waterborne disease.
During floods, flooding latrine increased excreta in open water lead massive
water pollution. For that, there is no clear water access and people will have to
rely on the open water sources for drinking, cooking, and bathing purposes.
The government and NGOs are trying to resolve the safe water problem by
distributing pure drinking water and water purification tablets for poor villagers.
Government installing deep tube-well to resolve drinking water crisis of the poor villagers of the district. Water supply technology like shallow tube-well, deep tub-
well, pond sand filter, both the community and household-based rainwater harvesting system, deep-set pump, arsenic-iron removal plant, dug well, piped
water supply installed by NGO’s forum for public health along with other
government or non-government organizations.
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