<
https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/01/18/half-of-bangladeshi-drinking-water-is-polluted-with-arsenic-and-climate-change-is-making-i>
"
As more saltwater and freshwater mixes, arsenic leaching could cause health
issues for several other countries too, researchers warn.
Bangladesh is well known to be one of the countries most imperilled by the
climate crisis.
Its sea-level is expected to rise half a metre by 2050, claiming around 11 per
cent of the land. Intensifying monsoon rains currently flood around a fifth of
the nation every year, driving families from their homes.
But these water disasters are also posing a more insidious threat to the
Bangladeshi people: arsenic contamination.
Around 49 per cent of the country’s drinking well water - which almost everyone
drinks - has unsafe limits of carcinogenic arsenic.
And a new study has found that the climate crisis is making the situation worse
- pointing to a looming public health crisis in Bangladesh.
“Issues such as arsenic and climate change is inflaming an already dire
situation in Bangladesh,” Md Tahmidul Islam, technical lead at WaterAid
Bangladesh, tells
Euronews Green.
Cyclones, floods, parching heat are all intensifying, tearing up homes,
toilets, roads, farmland. With clean water always the first thing to go, this
reality is leaving almost 26 million people being exposed to saline water and
struggling to survive."
Via Rixty Dixet.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
