Polluted drinking water is one of the dangers of flooding
Days of heavy rain–followed by floods and landslides–have prompted El Salvador’s president to declare a state of emergency.
November 9th, 2009 | by Coco McCabe
Mud and debris fill the streets of communities in El Salvador following days of heavy rain that triggered landslides and floods. Photo by CORDES
More than 100 people are dead in El Salvador following days of torrential rain that triggered floods and landslides. Over the weekend, the first emails hit from colleagues. Then wire service stories started showing up in newspapers around the country. This morning, I have spent the past hour emailing with my colleague Tjarda in San Salvador: Thousands of people have flocked to shelters. Some have seen their houses washed away by the raging waters, and many will return home to widespread damage.
It’s hard to fathom the devastation that rain can cause, but in a poor country where many of its seven million citizens live in precarious locations—in low-lying areas prone to flooding, or along steep hillsides whose fronts slip away when water-logged—the destruction can be sweeping.
And one of the worst consequences of flooding is the pollution of drinking water.
We learned how severe a problem that can be earlier this year when we were putting together a video on the effects of climate change and what poor communities are doing to fight back. In some of the rural villages of Zacatecoluca, many families rely on hand-dug wells for their drinking water, hoisting it up in buckets attached to ropes. But when the region floods, as it increasingly does, all kinds of waste sloshes into those wells, contaminating the water and making people sick.
“Healthy wells” are one answer. They’re capped and lined with a filter and the clean water is stored in a big tank from which people can draw. But only a few communities, so far, have these healthy wells. Many more are needed, and the calamity El Salvador is now grappling with reminds us just how critical that need is.
Soon after the disaster struck, Oxfam’s partners in the region began delivering aid to some of the local shelters–from supplies that had been pre-positioned. Check here for updates on Oxfam’s ongoing response.
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Coco McCabe
Coco McCabe is a former newspaper reporter who now writes for Oxfam America about its humanitarian work around the world.
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We do often hear about the devastation that occurs after natural disasters. We send food and toys and clothing and money to refugees, but don’t often give much thought to the lasting effects that flooding can have on the environment. When water washes into the wells, if makes contaminated water, causing people to become ill. I believe that contaminated water is not just an issue in disaster-stricken countries, but in many unindustrialized countries as well. We in the West have the technology and the money to clean water; people spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on bottled water when it comes nearly free from the tap. I think that water clean-up efforts need to be on the forefront of the anti-poverty acts, and is a major priority.
I am taking a class about globalization and poverty and we have been discussing how access to clean water is one of the criteria to be above the poverty line. You mentioned that \healthy wells\ are one solution. What is being done to provide these people with \healthy wells\? What are some other options to provide safe water?
Thanks, Caitlin, for your thoughts about these water problems. You are so right that it’s not just an issue for communities in the grip of natural disasters. Lack of clean water is an enormous problem for millions of people. A 2008 UNICEF report noted that 883 million people still lack access to an improved source of drinking water. In southern Ethiopia, where many communities don’t even have wells, some women are spending six hours a day lugging water home on their backs so their families will have something to drink and cook with.
Hi, Kali:
The healthy wells Oxfam has been helping communities build are covered and lined with filters. And the water from them gets stored in large tanks that the communities can easily keep clean themselves.In Ethiopia, we have been helping communities restore some of the ponds from which they draw water–in one recent case mobilizing villagers to remove the silt from the bottom of one so that it can hold more water when the rainy season comes; and in another case, helping the community repair a major breach that was allowing the water to drain away. But people aren’t the only ones who need water. It’s an essential resource for the livestcok on which they depend for food and income–and for herders in southern Ethiopia, finding enough water to keep their animals alive and healthy can be a serious challenge, especially during times of drought. Check out this link: http://www.oxfamamerica.org/multimedia/video/the-singing-wells-of-dubluq.It’s a video shot by a colleague that shows one solution to the problem.