MONSOON RELIEF
To correct this, the water board advised officials to cut the roads with concrete pipes so the rain can pass unobstructed to the sea.
The NGOs have taken their own measures as well. Oxfam has given out 2,000 household water filters in the East, and plans to give out another 2,000 to schools before the start of the monsoon, said Mr Mazahir, 25, a water and sanitation engineer for Oxfam.
The filters remove bacteria and dirt, though not the salt, he added. Another measure considered is to give people tanks to collect rainwater during the monsoon season.
A longer term solution, however, is the digging of new wells, though this would require some trial and error.
"A well in this place may be contaminated but when we dig another one a short distance away the water is drinkable," said Mr Mazahir, explaining that the groundwater flows feeding the wells can be complex.
At a beach in Navalady, Batticaloa, there are many wells scrawled with blue markings. Those are the wells that have been cleaned by the NGOs, said Ms K. Sarosathevi, 39, who lives and works at the place. On the floor of her sundry shop are six 1.25-litre soft dink bottles filled with water, and she has another three 3-litre bottles stashed elsewhere - her supply of water for the day.
However the water from the cleaned wells is not fit for drinking. Instead, Ms Sarosathevi gets water from a tube well 40m from her shop. It is a knee-high hand pump that draws up deep ground water, which is less likely to be contaminated than the shallow groundwater that feeds normal wells.
The tube well water here is drinkable, though not tasty. "If we make a cup of tea, the tea is salty," she said.
The tube wells have one drawback, however, that limits their use. "One tube well costs about 200,000 rupees (about S$3,400), so if it fails it can be very costly," Mr Mazahir said.
While several solutions are available, exactly what needs to be done still depends on what the rains bring, and NGOs will be monitoring the well water conditions throughout the monsoon season. If conditions improve, then the likes of the GRC and Oxfam could end their water activities early next year.
But the situation, and hopefully the waters too, will become clearer in a few months' time.
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