A free water supply house in Bình Phước Province’s Bù Gia Mập District. – VNA/VNS Photo

BÌNH PHƯỚC — Residents and soldiers in Bình Phước Province are providing free clean water to households in drought-hit areas.

In Bù Gia Mập District’s Bù Gia Mập Commune, many residents have given tap or well water to households in drought-hit areas for several months.

Bùi Thị Hiền in Bù Gia Mập Commune has provided tap water to nearby households who are mostly poor and ethnic people.

“My family provides water for households to help them reduce their difficulties,” she said.

Thị Pin, who is one of people getting clean water from Hiền, said her family has faced water shortages for three months and is glad to receive free clean water since her family no longer has to go to a stream to take water.

She gets clean water in Hiền’s house every early morning and then goes to work in the field, she said.  

“After working in the field and returning home late, we already have clean water for cooking and drinking,” she said.

More than 73 per cent of Bù Gia Mập Commune’s population are ethnic people and the commune has more than 30 per cent of near-poor and poor households.

The commune has faced drought in the dry season in recent years and many households in drought-hit areas have to buy clean water at a price of VNĐ75,000 (US$3.2) a cubic metre now.

Nguyễn Minh Phúc, deputy chairman of the commune People’s Committee, said the committee has called on residents who have wells and tap water to share their water with households in drought-hit areas.

The committee has established plans to work with Military Region 7’s Economic-Defense Unit 778, Bù Gia Mập Border Station and the Bù Gia Mập National Park to provide water for drought-affected households.

In Bù Đốp District, officials and soldiers at border stations are providing clean water to households in drought-hit areas. They are transporting about 1,000 cubic metres of clean water to supply drought-affected households a day.

Điểu Keng, the village chief in Bù Tam Hamlet in Bù Đốp’s Phước Thiện Commune, said his village has suffered water shortage for half of a month since wells have dried up, and many areas of rice and pepper were damaged.

“Border soldiers provide household-use water and the water supply is precious,” he said.

Many water resources in the province, including dams, reservoirs, ponds and canals, are drying up, causing shortages for household use and irrigation.

Farmers have dug ponds and wells to take water for crops. 

The province’s Steering Committee for Natural Disaster Prevention and Control, Search and Rescue has asked localities to secure water for household use and irrigation in the ongoing dry season.

Localities were told to check and upgrade irrigation works and ensure water security. 

Lê Anh Nam, deputy head of the steering committee, said the water levels of dams and reservoirs are low, so the impact is unavoidable. — VNS