GUWAHATI: Around 1.3 million people, including 3,93,758 children and 4,69,600 women from 1344 villages of 24 districts in Assam, have been affected by floods.
UNICEF is on the ground working in close coordination with respective governments and humanitarian partners to scale up its responses and support the immediate needs of affected children and their families.
“Clean and safe drinking water is the basic need of the hour, as flood waters have submerged homes and villages in Cachar district, one of the worst impacted in the state. To ensure safe access to drinking water to vulnerable populations, UNICEF Assam along with DDMA Cachar and partner Oxfam India have installed four filtration units – two units are deployed in Katigorah Revenue Circle, one in Silchar town and the fourth in Sonai Revenue Circle. The units can produce 700 to 1000 litres of water per hour. Each unit can cater to 100-150 households (4,500-6,750 people) living within 500 meters of the unit, for basic needs such as cooking and hygiene,” a UNICEF statement stated.
It added: “We are working closely with DDMA and PHED in planning, coordination and site identification. The running costs such as fuel, boat etc have been borne by DDMA, while our partner, Oxfam India is operating the system.”
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“It was on 9 June 2022 that the first AquaPlus 700 Filtration unit was installed in Rajeshwarpur 2 village and a group of six women were trained on installation, functioning and maintenance of the unit. A committee on water, sanitation and hygiene was created to promote safe water and hygiene behaviours in the village,” said Dr Madhulika Jonathan, chief of field office, UNICEF Assam.
Technical info on AquaPlus 700 CL Water Treatment System:
The system draws water from an available source. The water passes through a pre-filtration candle that can filter particles and micro-organisms up to the size of 5-micron.
The filtered water then passes through an ultra-membrane filter candle of 0.23-micron size. The water gets treated using online chlorination that ensures it is safe for consumption.
The system can be operated manually and using Honda Pumps. The current system uses a Honda Petrol Pump.
This is a suitable water treatment system with backwash and cleaning capacity of cartridge candles, which lasts up to 125,000 litres of water.
This system can take on raw water with a turbidity level of 100 NTU and produce 700 to 1,000 litres of water per hour, depending on the turbidity level of the water.
It has the capacity of producing treated water of <5 NTU turbidity and a log 6 removal of harmful bacteria.
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