Daily Archives: May 3, 2016

In photos: Children in search of water

The punishing weather is taking a toll on them. Parched water sources, deaths due to sun stroke, closed schools, halted outdoor activities and migration are inundating daily news as India and its children face one of the worst water crises in the last 10 years. With their villages reeling under the scorching sun and facing an acute water shortage, many are forced to look for ways to support their families in gathering water, often from far-off places. As India battles between rising temperatures and drying up water resources, two contradictory recent images capture the imagination one of a train carrying water to Latur, which has gone completely dry and the second of an upcoming bountiful monsoon, which has sent the stock market soaring in anticipation. Here are some images from across the country that depict the drudgery that some children have to go through on a daily basis just to drink a few drops of water…

A village boy bathes in the remaining water of a dried pond to beat the heat in the outskirts of Bhubaneswar (Photo: Biswaranjan Rout/NurPhoto/Getty Images)
A village boy bathes in the remaining water of a dried pond to beat the heat in the outskirts of Bhubaneswar (Photo: Biswaranjan Rout/NurPhoto/Getty Images)

 

A little girl carries a metal pitcher filled with water through a field in drought-hit Latur n iMaharashtra (Photo: Danish Siddiqui/ Reuters)
A little girl carries a metal pitcher filled with water through a field in drought-hit Latur n iMaharashtra (Photo: Danish Siddiqui/ Reuters)
In a drought-affected village in Dindhori, Madhya Pradesh, children can be seen climbing down the walls of an almost dried-up well to fetch the remaining water. (Photo: Divyakant Solanki / EPA/Corbis Images)
In a drought-affected village in Dindhori, Madhya Pradesh, children can be seen climbing down the walls of an almost dried-up well to fetch the remaining water. (Photo: Divyakant Solanki / EPA/Corbis Images)

 

Catching the last fish in a lake gone dry for the first time in a decade in Maharashtra (Photo: Aditya Waikul)
Catching the last fish in a lake gone dry for the first time in a decade in Maharashtra (Photo: Aditya Waikul)

 

A girl carries a pitcher after filling it with drinking water from a “virda”, a small opening made by villagers manually to collect water, from the dried-up Banas river at Sukhpur village, north of the western Indian city of Ahmedabad. At least 30 virdas have been dug up by villagers in the river. Villagers walk two and a half kilometres to draw drinking water from them, and they say it takes 30-40 minutes to fill a five-litre jar. Occasionally the villagers get their supply of drinking water from municipal tankers but most of the time they depend on the virdas before the monsoon arrives in the region. (Photo: Amit Dave/ Reuters)
A girl carries a pitcher after filling it with drinking water from a “virda”, a small opening made by villagers manually to collect water, from the dried-up Banas river at Sukhpur village, north of the western Indian city of Ahmedabad. At least 30 virdas have been dug up by villagers in the river. Villagers walk two and a half kilometres to draw drinking water from them, and they say it takes 30-40 minutes to fill a five-litre jar. Occasionally the villagers get their supply of drinking water from municipal tankers but most of the time they depend on the virdas before the monsoon arrives in the region. (Photo: Amit Dave/ Reuters)
A boy who migrated from drought hit areas of Maharashtra carries water to his family's makeshift hut in Kukse Borivali, 85 kilometres (53 miles) north-east of Mumbai. Decades of groundwater abuse, populist water policies and poor monsoons have turned vast swaths of central and western India into a dust bowl, driving distressed farmers to suicide or menial day labor in the cities. (Rafiq Maqbool/ AP Photo)
A boy who migrated from drought hit areas of Maharashtra carries water to his family’s makeshift hut in Kukse Borivali, 85 kilometres (53 miles) north-east of Mumbai. Decades of groundwater abuse, populist water policies and poor monsoons have turned vast swaths of central and western India into a dust bowl, driving distressed farmers to suicide or menial day labor in the cities. (Photo: Rafiq Maqbool/ AP)
Piryanka fetches water in Malegaon village, Parbhani district in Maharashtra. (Photo: Amit Haralkar)
Piryanka fetches water in Malegaon village, Parbhani district in Maharashtra. (Photo: Amit Haralkar)
Children from the village of Kankroli look for shells in the dried out bed of the Rajsamand lake near Udaipur in India’s drought-hit state of Rajasthan. The lake has dried up for the first time in living memory. Thousands of villages in Rajasthan are facing an acute shortage of water and animal feed with most sources of water having dried out in what is seen to be the worst drought in 100 years. (Photo: Unknown)
Children from the village of Kankroli look for shells in the dried out bed of the Rajsamand lake near Udaipur in India’s drought-hit state of Rajasthan. The lake has dried up for the first time in living memory. Thousands of villages in Rajasthan are facing an acute shortage of water and animal feed with most sources of water having dried out in what is seen to be the worst drought in 100 years. (Photo: Unknown)

 

Water levels in wells is so low that one cant get enough water from a pail. A girl got into the well to fetch water at a remote village about 180 km from Mumbai. (Photo: Aditya Waikul)
Water levels in wells is so low that one cant get enough water from a pail. A girl got into the well to fetch water at a remote village about 180 km from Mumbai. (Photo: Aditya Waikul)