How Bangladesh is drinking itself to death
An attempt to provide clean drinking water has led to the arsenic-induced deaths of tens of thousands every year – turning what should have been a development success story into the ‘largest mass poisoning in history’
Dhaka, the heaving, ramshackle capital of 17 million people, is spreading its concrete tentacles ever outwards across the flat riverine plains of the Bay of Bengal in this country squeezed between India and Myanmar. There’s an in-your-face vibrancy about Dhaka, a smiling resilience against all the odds of its manifold pollutions and adversities – the choking traffic, the sprawling slums, and groaning infrastructure. On the plus side, Bangladesh is something of a development success story. Poverty has been reduced, and it outclasses its economically stronger neighbour India in most health and human development indicators.
But development has come at a price. The tanneries of Dhaka, which produce the finished leather that provides a significant source of export earnings, pump their noxious dyes into rivers. Farmers responding to the growing demand for fruit and vegetables in urban and regional markets overuse pesticides. Contamination of food is shockingly ingenious – formaldehyde to preserve fresh fish and fruit, industrial dyes to colour processed goods. Rules and structures of accountability exist on paper, but legal enforcement is poor, officials easily bought or silenced.
But arsenic, that’s a tragedy of a different dimension. Up to half of the population of this country of over 150 million people are exposed to arsenic poisoning. The World Health Organisation’s “safe” level for arsenic in drinking water is 10 micrograms per litre. In most of the affected areas of Bangladesh the level of arsenic in groundwater is more than 50 micrograms per litre. Levels over 500 micrograms are common. Arsenic kills an estimated 40,000-50,000 Bangladeshis every year.