Flood-Hit Regions Grapple with Water Crisis

APP

PESHAWAR: The Irrigation Department reported on Tuesday that while the floods caused significant damage to property and human life on the one hand, they also contaminated drinking water reservoirs, leading to a severe drinking water shortage in the affected areas of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

In flood-hit districts of KP, including Swat, Dir Lower, Dir Upper, Kohistan, Shangla, Malakand, Mardan, Nowshera, Charsadda, and Dera Ismail Khan; around 2 million people are lacking the facility of clean drinking water.

In many areas, water ponds and wells are polluted by flood waters that may cause the spread of various epidemics.

The department added that the underground clean water has also been contaminated by the flood waters in various flood-hit areas causing a scarcity of drinking water. Drinking polluted water is causing various abdominal and stomach diseases among locals.

The provision of clean drinking water has reportedly become a major concern, which is why mineral water has been given priority in assistance for flood victims; the department said.

The Irrigation Department voiced its concern that the availability of drinking water to the flood-affected people and their animals must be ensured for a period of one month so that there is no prospect of additional human and cow deaths in flood-hit areas.