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23 February 2001 by Jemini Pandya in Bhachau On an open piece of ground alongside New Bhuj railway station and in the full glare of the midday sun, is a ragbag collection of small shacks made out of any little thing people have managed to get hold of. The residents are working hard to clear a space on the land of sharp stones and thorny bushes. They are keen to work, for in the end the space will house a blue bladder tank from the German Red Cross that can hold 15,000 litres of water. The day before, a Red Cross team had arrived at Bapadayadunagar, a settlement on the edge of Bhuj to check out reports that it had been badly neglected in the aftermath of the earthquake. It found a population of 900 people not only living in threadbare shacks but also having to cope with access to water for only 45 minutes every other day. The assessment was easy. These people, for now camping on private land adjoining what had been their homes until nearly a month ago, desperately needed some shelter and some water. A crew of three water and sanitation delegates from the Federation and the German Red Cross emergency response unit arriving the next day, located the best place for a bladder tank and taps and set the residents to work to clear the land. After that, it took only a matter of minutes before the tank, some taps and a pipe connecting the two, were in place. Now it was a question of just ensuring water supplies were going to be tankered in on a daily basis by the Gujarati water authorities so that the bladder tank could be filled. The Federation water sanitation coordinator, Patrick D'Aoust takes the community elders to the authorities to ensure they knew of Bapadayadunagar and its needs and to arrange the water deliveries. "Having a water tank here will really make a difference to us," says Suleyman Rana, the community leader for Bapadayadunagar. "We will really make use of it but we won't waste any water. It is very good news for us," he adds. Bapadayadunagar isn't the only place to benefit from the International Federation's water and sanitation programme in the earthquake affected areas of Gujarat. The earthquake has left the water infrastructure badly damaged and several years of a crippling drought in the region hasn't helped the situation either. The authorities are having to tanker in water supplies but with a drastic shortage of tankers, access to a regular supply of clean water is a problem. "The tankers have to be emptied by individuals queuing up for their water. It takes a long time to do this and it ties up the tankers for hours," says Patrick D'Aoust, the Federation's Water and Sanitation Coordinator in Gujarat. To help free up the tankers so they can cover a wider area, the Federation, using the German and French Red Cross water sanitation teams, have initially focused their programme on the setting up of water storage units - a total of 45 by the end of February. This will provide clean water for an estimated 200,000 people. Around Bhuj, 10 water storage tanks capable of holding anything between 2,000 to 70,000 litres have already been put up at strategic points across the city to maximise the number of people who can be helped. Bhuj is relatively well off in terms of damage to its water infrastructure, as is the town of Anjar. But in Bhachau, there is virtually nothing left of any infrastructure. So when the Spanish Red Cross set up a mobile clinic in the town, the German and Spanish Red Cross water and sanitation units had to put up a water purifying system and a bladder tank provided by the French Red Cross that can hold 15,000 litres. The system will provide clean water not just for use at the clinic but also for the Spanish Red Cross team of medical staff and volunteers. There is a similar system in place but on a much bigger scale at the Red Cross field hospital in Bhuj. Here a German Red Cross emergency response unit largely funded by the European Community Humanitarian Office (ECHO) processes an average of 45,000 litres of water a day. Its capacity is nearly five times greater but it is limited to how much water is tankered in each day. The unit's purpose is vital, providing clean water again for the hospital and for the several hundreds of Red Cross staff and volunteers living on site. However, the German Red Cross team have expanded their activities to helping with construction jobs within the field hospital and to helping the French Red Cross set up water tanks across the region. "It has been a productive collaboration," says Gerhard Tauscher, team leader for the German Red Cross. "We had so much to do at the beginning, it was so intense. The help we got from the German Red Cross was really useful," says Laurent Ploquin, coordinator for the French Red Cross. Among the first joint projects was the setting up of a water purifying unit and a bladder tank at a mobile clinic run by the Japanese Red Cross in Sukhpar, a village close to Bhuj. Now the focus is turning to more long term issues. Permanent and semi-permanent latrines for public places and waste disposal bins are part of an effort to improve sanitation. But access to water remains the core problem especially as summer approaches. It is going to take time for the entire water infrastructure to be repaired and in the meantime, villages don't have the same access to water as people in town. "The need for water storage facilities in the villages is reaching a critical point," says Patrick D'Aoust. "You can always see people waiting eagerly with their pots as the tankers arrive. We have to provide them with some means of storing water in case one day a water tanker fails to arrive." Related links India/Gujarat earthquake request for assistance More news and reports on Federation operation in India Make a donation |
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