The
sight of Mohadin Musammil and his team of Red Cross volunteers
is a reassuring reminder to the people of Pottuvil in Eastern
Sri Lanka that their plight has not been forgotten. Every day
the volunteers can be seen, moving from house to house with
their buckets and ladders in this tsunami-ravaged region. Their
job is to check the water quality and if necessary, clean the
wells along Pottuvil's coastal belt.
After the tsunami, Musammil found work with the Swedish Red
Cross Water and Sanitation Emergency Response Unit who arrived
in Pottuvil in February. Now, almost 10 months on, he is heading
up the Sri Lanka Red Cross well cleaning programme in the area.
Musammil lives in the village of Jalaldeen Square, a small community
that was hit hard by the tsunami. Once a tight knit community,
most of Jalaldeen's surviving residents have abandoned the ruins
of their former homes. Musammil’s family are among the
few that remain. They live in a temporary wooden shelter built
by a local NGO alongside the ruins of their former home.
As well as caring for his five children, Musammil now looks
after his sister in law’s three daughters, after their
mother perished in the wave. “It is a big responsibility,
but I’m one of the lucky ones here, I have work,”
he explains ruefully.
Katarina Ortfelt, a water and sanitation delegate for Ampara
District with the International Federation of Red Cross and
Red Crescent Societies, coordinates the work of Musammil’s
team.
“Most families used to depend entirely on their own private
wells for water, but since the tsunami, salinity levels in the
ground water have increased dramatically and the water is only
good for washing,” she explains.
Initially the focus for the Red Cross was on chlorinating and
cleaning out debris from the wells left behind by the tsunami.
Now, every three months they visit each well in the area to
check on salinity levels.
“In the past eight months we have cleaned more than 1,300
wells. In that time we have seen salinity levels drop by 50%
but the water still isn’t fit to drink,” says Musammil.
“We need the monsoon rains to come and flush out the salt”.
The villagers of Jalaldeen who chose to remain now depend on
fresh water tanked in by the Red Cross to a number of communal
water tanks and collapsible bladders dotted around the village.”
The water situation in this arid region has always been precarious.
Beset by drought for three months of the year, almost half the
wells in the area go dry. But the combination of drought, damaged
infrastructure, contaminated wells and displaced populations
has created a huge need for clean drinking water that the humanitarian
community is to addressing collectively.
The Red Cross has been assisting on a number of different levels
which include large-scale water purification and distribution,
well cleaning, latrine construction and rehabilitation and the
upgrading of water supply networks. Four specialist water units
run by the German, French and Italian Red Cross Societies are
currently producing and distributing up to three million litres
of drinking water per week to some 50,000 people in Ampara and
Batticaloa districts in the east of the country.
“Because of the widespread needs, this is one of the most
broad-ranging and ambitious water and sanitation programmes
that the Red Cross has ever undertaken in a single country,”
explains Fidel Pena, the Federation’s Water and Sanitation
Coordinator. “At one end of the scale we are working at
a household level, providing water filters and cleaning wells.
At the other end we are supporting multi-million dollar water
supply infrastructure projects”.
Two kilometres inland most of the surviving residents who have
moved away from the damaged coastline are now living in temporary
camps erected either side of the road. The camps, which were
built in scrubland, now resemble small villages complete with
grocery shops, vegetable gardens and local bus services. Every
morning a Red Cross bowser arrives to replenish the 10,000 litre
water tank at the roadside. Women from the camp quickly crowd
around the tap stands with their buckets to collect the fresh
water. This is just one of the many stops made by the bowser
which returns every few hours to refill at the water production
plant run by the German Red Cross near Tirrukkovil.
Sited on the edge of a picturesque lake, the production plant
is pumping water from the lake into 70,000 litre holding tanks
where it is treated with aluminium sulphate. After a couple
of hours the water settles and is pumped into two other storage
tanks where it is chlorinated and pumped into the waiting bowsers.
Gottfried Stauffer, a water and sanitation delegate with the
German Red Cross manages the plant.
“Every day we are supplying water to about 1,200 families
in six temporary camps in the area. Other organisations also
send their bowsers, so, on average, we are sending out between
120,000 to 150,000 litres every day,” he says.
Since December, the Red Cross has been trucking water to thousands
of people across Sri Lanka’s nine tsunami-affected districts.
“This is a need that will continue until the water quality
in community wells improves and people in temporary shelters
move into permanent homes where they have a reliable water supply”,
explains Fidel Pena. As part of the long term solution, The
Red Cross Red Crescent Movement will be helping to restore water
and sanitation infrastructure to its pre-tsunami status whilst
also upgrading and constructing some new facilities.
On 23 August 2005, the Federation, together with the Sri Lanka
Red Cross, signed an agreement with the Government of Sri Lanka
to construct water supply infrastructure in Ampara, Galle, Hambantota,
Jaffna, and Matara districts, at a cost of some 38 million Swiss
Francs (US$30 million, €24.7 million). The first scheme
to be implemented under this agreement is a large-scale water
and sanitation project in Galle district which will benefit
more than 5,500 people and will employ more than 60 Water Board
staff for up to two years.
These large-scale infrastructure projects will reach beyond
communities directly affected by the tsunami. It is important
that inequity is not created between the tsunami-affected coastline
and adjacent areas which may also have high levels of vulnerability.
It won’t be long before work starts on a project to upgrade
Pottuvil's water supply network, but for now the work of volunteers
like Musammil remains essential.
|
 |
 |
|
|
Mohadin
Mussamil adopted his sister-in-law's daughters when she
perished in the tsunami.
Photo: Patrick Fuller/International Federation (p13410)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
Mussamil
and his team have cleaned more than 1,300 wells in the
Pottuvil area.
Photo: Patrick Fuller/International Federation (p13408)
|
|
|
 |
|
|
The
German Red Cross water production plant in Tirrukkovil
produces between 120,000 and 150,000 liters of clean water
each day.
Photo: Patrick Fuller/International Federation (p13409)
|
|
|
 |
|
|
The
population of the temporary camp in Komari rely upon daily
water deliveries from the Red Cross.
Photo: Patrick Fuller/International Federation (p13407)
|
|
News
