Belgium has sent a water purification system and a team of experts from the B-FAST intervention unit to help the victims of this summer’s devastating flooding in Pakistan. The team left for Pakistan on Monday morning. Around 1,600 lost their lives in the floods and the material damage across a wide area of Pakistan is enormous.
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Belgium to send water purification equipment and a team of experts to Pakistan
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The B-FAST team is made up of experts from the Civil Protection Agency, the Federal Health Department, the Defence Ministry, and the Federal Foreign Affairs Department. The operation is being supported by the European Union and is part of the EU’s coordinated response to the crisis caused by the flooding in Pakistan.
In mid-October a B-FAST reconaisence team went to Pakistan to assess where a water purification plant could be best set up. Two locations were identified, one in Sindh Bhiria and the other in Kot Diji Province. Both areas currently face a serious lack of safe drinking water.
In a press statement the Federal Foreign Affairs Department wrote that "With the installation of the equipment at both locations a total of 120,000 litres of water per day can be purified. At the same time an existing water purification installation in Kot Diji will be repaired and decontaminated, so that the local population will be offered a long-term solution to the current wave of infections and illness”.
The intention is to involve a local team of experts in the process of installing the equipment so that local technicians can be trained to take over the running of the water purification installation once the Belgian B-FAST team returns home. The equipment will be given to Pakistan along with all the products needed to enable it to purify water for at least 12 months.