Village life in the balance

In the wake of Cyclone Nargis, the people of Tiger River give no thought to tomorrow. Their concern is for today, and survival. Much depends, they say, on the next rice harvest. But with their fields now saline - from the sea surge that accompanied the cyclone - its success is already in doubt. Not all is lost, however, and spirits have risen since the Red Cross started pumping clean drinking water.

The water rose steadily. The winds of Cyclone Nargis had torn at the village of Kyar Chaung since late afternoon but after dark came something more deadly. In other parts of the Irrawaddy delta, the sea surge Nargis brought had been in the form of a wave. It had swept through the low-lying countryside. Not here in a tranquil community of 1,700 people, a rural backwater of the Mawlamyinegyun administrative area. The water rose and kept rising, a flood tide that never turned. In the darkness of the village panic broke out. First the water had seeped into people's homes, then rose to their ankles, their knees, their waists. It was steady but unrelenting. Some sought safety on straw stacks, others climbed trees or swam to where they thought they might find safety. Many, bewildered, just stood their ground. They had seen many floods but one on this scale was unprecedented. When the water reached their chests, children were lifted onto parents' shoulders. What would be would be, they reasoned, and there was nothing they could do to prevent it. The water stopped rising, they say now, with some people already on tiptoe. 'To here!' a woman called Htwe Hla shouted, pointing to the tip of her nose. Some 20 people drowned in Kyar Chaung (the name means Tiger River) and most survivors escaped with only their lives. Homes collapsed and the tide took many away along with possessions and livestock.

Deploying the water unit to remote delta settlements required a creative approach: Red Cross aid worker Steve Barton hired a boat and put his equipment on it. Water is first pumped from the river into holding tanks to let the clay settle, then passed through the filters

Asked about the future of her village, Htwe Hla said, 'We don't think about that. The only thing on our minds is how we survive.'

The odds are stacked against them. The 90 buffaloes and cows the village lost cannot be replaced because no one has the means to do it. A buffalo costs around $200 and a family income here is between $1.50 and $3 a day, every cent of it needed for pure survival.

They lost ploughs and fishing boats, too, and most crucial of all the flood water left their rice fields saline. If their next harvest fails they are in deeper trouble. 'Everything depends on the harvest,' a village monk said, 'and since salt water covered all the fields we cannot expect very much.' Some challenges though have begun to be met, and spirits have been lifted by the arrival of Red Cross drinking water. Clean water is critical to community health but in Tiger River it has brought some semblance of hope as well. An Australian Red Cross water purification unit has been deployed to the village and begun to provide mobile services that will benefit both Tiger River and communities further afield. To do it has required a creative approach. Reaching inhabitants of remoter delta settlements has presented logistical problems, particularly where the sea surge turned normal water sources saline. The Red Cross units deployed in Mawlamyinegyun, Labutta, Bogale and Dedaye can produce together a million litres of clean water a day. But they cannot purify salt water. Only a 'reverse osmosis' process can, and reverse osmosis equipment has such a low output, is so high tech and requires such a great deal of energy it is totally unsuitable for the Irrawaddy delta. The units are therefore being placed as close as possible to saline areas where the need is great, and water is being transported further by truck or boat or a means devised by the local population. Red Cross aid worker Steve Barton (from central Victoria), who set up the Tiger River operation, sought a boat solution. The tides there are such that for 15 days out of 30 the river water is salt. When the tide comes up, purification is out of the question but when it recedes the water is fresh.

River water on the left and filtered water on the right: the Red Cross units deployed in Labutta, Mawlamyinegyun, Bogale and Dedaye can produce together a million litres of clean water a day. Clean water is critical to community health but in Tiger River it has brought some semblance of hope as well.

Barton's strategy: pump water through the filters on fresh days and deliver product up and downstream on salt ones. He hired a boat for $3 dollars a day and put his equipment on it.

The Australian unit can produce 5,000 litres of purified water an hour and the plan is to serve some 6,500 people in half a dozen villages. Bladder tanks will be provided in each location and regular boat visits will ensure they are kept supplied.

'That may sound simple,' said Barton. 'But the first time around we discovered it wasn't. Within an hour our filters were blocked because there is so much clay in the river.'

So now the water is pumped first from the river into holding tanks made of tarpaulin within bamboo frames, where the clay settles to the bottom in a couple of days and can then be passed through the filters.

The solution got Steve Barton thinking further. For hundreds of thousands of people in the cyclone-devastated area, most clean water in the rainy season falls out of the sky. From May until October they harvest it in large earthenware pots, often fed from roofs by bamboo and other guttering.

But the cyclone broke many pots and, as with their livestock, poor families cannot afford to replace them: each pot costs around $20. It is clear in many villages that the destitute have given up: the rivers now supply the drinking water that is then consumed untreated.

Barton advocates using the holding tank system to provide community receptacles to harvest the rain.

'We'll go on pumping water which will grow in importance in the dry season. But in the meantime we should make the most of what falls freely from the sky.'