China steps up battle to prevent epidemics in quake zone
Posted: 17 May 2008 1451 hrs

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BEIJING - China is rushing to secure safe drinking water for millions made homeless by a devastating earthquake in a bid to head off epidemics that could heighten the death toll, state media said Saturday.

The China Daily said the effort to battle potential epidemics focused on supplying fresh drinking water and improving sanitary conditions for millions of people forced to live in tent cities or out in the open.

"We plan to send 48 portable water-purifying machines to the most badly hit areas," the newspaper quoted Housing Minister Jiang Weixin as saying on Friday, acknowledging that lack of clean water was a key health concern.

China's health ministry has said that it could not rule out epidemics in a zone where millions of people are homeless and many are already precariously clinging to life following Monday's disaster.

Basic facilities such as cooking stoves and toilets are lacking, officials said.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said that to avoid epidemics, the priority is to secure a clean supply of fresh drinking water and to improve food safety and sanitation standards.

"Unsafe food and lack of access to safe water, facilities for personal hygiene and safe sanitation arrangements all create a real risk of outbreaks of infectious diseases," said Arturo Pesigan, the WHO's technical officer for emergency and humanitarian action in the western Pacific region.

He said the danger was heightened by large numbers of people living in overcrowded temporary shelters.

Jiang said air drops of millions of bottles of water to the quake-hit areas were insufficient and that water purifying machines were needed.

He said they were destined for Wenchuan and Beichuan counties where water supplies had been cut off by Monday's 7.9 magnitude quake that left an estimated 50,000 people dead.

Forty machines were being transported direct from manufacturers to the quake zone and two are already in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, he said.

Six more machines were believed to have reached there by late Friday.

Each machine can produce enough safe drinking water for up to 10,000 people, said Li Dongxu, head of the housing ministry's urban construction department. - AFP/ir