 |
 |
 |
 |
Medical Boat - Varanasi, India
 |
Projects For Asia Charitable Foundation, Inc. has a medical boat which operating on the Ganges River . The PFACF team treats people living along the banks in the numerous villages for the many health problems that come from the River.
The Ganges is 1557 miles long (2506 km) - longest river that goes through the middle of India . Pollution is a huge problem on the Ganges . People are cremated and dumped in the river because they believe that the river will purify them. Inadequate cremation procedures contributes to a large number of partially burnt or unburnt human corpses floating down the Ganga, not to mention livestock carcasses (cremated people are not burned well because they can't afford much kindle).
 |
Sewage is dumped into the river by the people along it. Sheer volume of estimated waste in the river is nearly 1 billion liters per day. Factories dump chemicals and waste into the river. Agricultural chemicals wash into it. There's too much grazing of animals that make waste which runs into the river.
Surprisingly, the Hindu political parties in India are not very active in the efforts to clean up the Ganga , and it is not very high in the general religious agenda. People believe that the river can purify itself so not very much pollution control is done about it. People bathe in the Ganges, sometimes as many as 10 million in one day; people also wash their clothes in it, brush their teeth in it and drink the water. They end up with poor hygiene and disease including some of the worst waterborne diseases such as dysentery, hepatitis, and cholera.