On October 26, speaking with a reporter from Lao Dong Newspaper, teacher Trinh Van Cuong - Principal of Muong Lat Boarding Secondary School for Ethnic Minorities (Muong Lat Commune, Thanh Hoa Province) - said that for nearly 20 days, the school has been facing a serious shortage of domestic water.
The reason is that the recent storm caused a long ditch section (under the management of Song Chu Irrigation Company Limited) to collapse, paralyzing the entire domestic water supply system to the school.
The water shortage began on October 6. To ensure the safety and hygiene of students, every afternoon, teachers have to take hundreds of students to the Poong stream area to bathe" - Mr. Cuong said.
According to Mr. Cuong, the repair of the ditch collapse incident may take several months to complete. In the immediate future, the school has chosen a temporary solution: for students near the school, they will go home to bathe and then return; for students from far away, they will be guided by teachers and taken to the stream to bathe.
Previously, the school rented a well in the hope of having water, however, although the well was drilled up to 120m deep (cussion of 53 million VND), the amount of water was very small, just enough to serve the sanitation system.
"The school currently has 2 wells, if pumping continuously for 24 hours, it can only get more than 40m3 of water, while the daily demand of the whole school is about 70m3" - Mr. Cuong shared.
Worried about students' bathing in the upcoming winter, Mr. Cuong said: In previous years, when there was water, the school equipped a firewood hot water boiling system for students to bathe. But this year, this system cannot operate because there is no water".
It is known that Muong Lat Boarding Secondary School for Ethnic Minorities currently has 245 students. Faced with the shortage of domestic water, especially shower water in winter, the school is considering a plan to pump water to reserve for the cold days, while laundry still has to go to the stream.
According to Mr. Trinh Van Cuong, in addition to the lack of water for daily use, the student dormitory system is also overloaded, with some rooms having double the number of students compared to the standards.
