Water purification systems save lives after devastating Pakistan floods

(December 22, 2010) Church relief organizations said that providing filtered water has helped solve health problems in flood refugee camps months after Pakistan's worst-ever floods. "Several children died owing to eruption of various stomach diseases in flood-hit areas," Bishop Mushtaq Anjum of Vision for Kingdom Church in Pakistan. "However, clean water has minimized the fatality rate, although poor food is still a major concern," he said. Bishop Anjum oversees the operation of seven small water plants serving flood victims in Sindh province in southern Pakistan. The water purification systems treat 5,000 gallons per day. They were imported from the United States in September and placed at several camps housing displaced survivors. Pakistan's energy crisis also poses a challenge as people attempt to recover from weeks-long flooding brought on by torrential monsoons in July. "Though a Muslim-owned water tanker service is providing us with free water, we still have to rent generators during frequent power outages," explained Bashir Allarakha, a water plant operator in a tent village in Kemari Town, a densely populated area in Karachi. About 3,000 people live at the site, making it the second-largest concentration of internally displaced persons in the seaport city. Media reports indicate there are about 17,000 flood survivors in various government-run relief camps in the Karachi metropolitan area.