2022.05.20 16:40World eye

貴重な水を運ぶ列車を待ちわびて インド西部

【AFP=時事】インド西部の砂漠の州ラジャスタンに熱波の中、貴重な水を乗せ、特別列車がやって来る。アフロズ・ジャハンさん(13)は毎日、学校に行く代わりに列車を待っている。脇には容器がたくさん積まれた手押し車が止まっている。(写真はイラジャスタン州パーリ地区で、給水列車が運んできた水を容器に移す人々)
 ここでは気温が45度を超えることも珍しくはない。だが、今年は例年より早く気温が上昇し始めた。気候変動のさらなる証拠だと指摘する専門家も多い。
 アフロズさんは、パーリ地区でその日2度目の給水列車を待っていた。「4月は容器が満杯になったことはなかった」と話す。
 パーリ地区に住む数千人にとってここ3週間以上、およそ200万リットルの水を積んだ40両の貨物列車が唯一の水資源となっている。
 毎日、女性や子どもを中心に数十人が、青色のプラスチック製の容器や金属製のポットを持って、列車から地下タンクに水を入れるホースに殺到する。
 約65キロ離れた同州ジョドプールで積み込まれた水は、セメント製の貯蔵タンクに移される。その後、処理施設に送られ、ろ過され、配水される。
 しかし、アフロズさんの家族ら住民は、ろ過前であっても貯蔵タンクから直接くむ方が楽だ。
 アフロズさんの家族は、水を確保するために子どもを学校に行かせられないこともあり、苦悩している。
 アフロズさんの母、ヌールさんは「一家の大黒柱に助けを求めるわけにはいかない。それをすると、食べ物と水の両方に困ることになる」と、アルミ容器に水をくみながら語った。
 「子どもの教育に影響するが、私ひとりではすべての容器を運ぶことはできない」と訴えた。
 南アジアではここ数週間、何億人もが初夏の熱波に苦しんでいる。インドでは3月、記録的な暑さに見舞われた。
 国連児童基金(ユニセフ)によると、インドで安全な飲料水を手に入れることができるのは人口の半数未満にとどまっている。全土718地区のうち3分の2が「極度の水不足」にさらされている。【翻訳編集AFPBBNews】
〔AFP=時事〕(2022/05/20-16:40)
2022.05.20 16:40World eye

Waiting for the water train in scorching India


Afroz misses school every day to spend hours waiting with a handcart full of containers for a special train bringing precious water to people suffering a heatwave in India's desert state of Rajasthan.
Temperatures often exceed 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit) here, but this year the heat came early in what many experts say is more proof of climate change making life unbearable for India's 1.4 billion people.
It's always been very hot here and we have always struggled for water, Afroz, 13, told AFP as he waited in Pali district for the second time that day for the special train.
But I don't remember filling up containers in April.
For more than three weeks now, the 40-wagon train -- carrying some 2 million litres -- has been the only source of water for thousands of people in the district.
- Untreated -
Every day, dozens of people -- mostly women and children -- jostle with blue plastic jerry cans and metal pots to fill from hoses gushing water out of the army-green train into an underground tank.
Water has been dispatched by train to Pali before, but according to local railway officials, the shortage this year was already critical in April so they started early.
The wagons -- filled in Jodhpur, around 65 kilometres (40 miles) away -- are first emptied into cement storage tanks, from which the water is sent to a treatment plant for filtering and distribution.
But for Afroz's family and many others like them, life is easier if they fill directly from the storage tanks, despite the water being untreated.
That their children skip school at times to ensure there is water in the house is what hits the families the most.
I can't ask the breadwinner of the family to help me. Otherwise, we'll be struggling for both food and water, Afroz's mother Noor Jahan said as she filled up an aluminium pot.
It is affecting my child's education, but what do I do? I cannot carry all these containers on my own, she told AFP.
- Cracked feet -
Hundreds of millions of people in South Asia have been sweltering in an early summer heatwave in recent weeks, with India seeing its warmest March on record.
In India and Pakistan, more intense heat waves of longer durations and occurring at a higher frequency are projected, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in a recent landmark report.
The cascading impacts of heatwaves on agricultural output, water, energy supplies and other sectors are already apparent, World Meteorological Organization chief Petteri Taalas said this month.
On Friday, India banned wheat exports -- needed to help fill a supply gap due to the Ukraine war -- in part due to the heat wilting crops.
Together, high humidity and heat can create wet-bulb temperatures so vicious that sweating no longer cools people down, potentially killing a healthy adult within hours.
I have already made three trips from my house in the last one hour. And I'm the only one who can do it, said Laxmi, another woman collecting water, pointing to cracks on her feet.
We have no direct water to our homes and it is so hot. What are we supposed to do if something happens to us while we walk up and down to fetch water?
- 'Extreme depletion' -
In 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched an ambitious Jal Jeevan (Water Life) Mission, promising a functional tap connection to all households in rural India by 2024.
But less than 50 percent of the population has access to safely managed drinking water, according to UNICEF, with two-thirds of India's 718 districts affected by extreme water depletion.
A little further from Pali, 68-year-old Shivaram walked on the cracked bottom of a dried-out pond in Bandai village, his bright-pink turban protecting his head from the scorching sun.
The pond -- which was the main source of water for both residents and their animals ? has been dry for almost two years because of low rainfall. The shells of dead turtles litter the cracked mud.
Farmers have been severely impacted, Shivaram said. Some of our animals have died too.

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