Ganges Bathing
If you visit the city of Varanasi, India on the banks of the Ganges, you will see the effects that a large
population can have on a river.
Someone said, "It's unimaginable, the river water is black. It smells bad and has methane bubbling to the
surface from the bottom."
Most of the city's 1.4 million people depend directly on the river for their drinking water. Not surprisingly,
water-borne diseases including typhoid, hepatitis and amoebic dysentery are rife. The World Health
Organisation estimates up to 1.5 million children die a year in India from such illnesses.
More than a hundred population centers along the Gange river's 2500-kilometre length dump a total of
1300 million liters of waste into the river every day.
A “superstition” of many Hindus in India is that washing your baby in the Holy Ganges River is a good
thing. Since starting this superstition, the Ganges has become more polluted.
Some irony is involved in this superstition, however, because apparently if infants are exposed to the
virus that causes polio at a very young age, they become immune to it and typically will not be struck by
polio later in life.
If you visit the city of Varanasi, India on the banks of the Ganges, you will see the effects that a large
population can have on a river.
Someone said, "It's unimaginable, the river water is black. It smells bad and has methane bubbling to the
surface from the bottom."
Most of the city's 1.4 million people depend directly on the river for their drinking water. Not surprisingly,
water-borne diseases including typhoid, hepatitis and amoebic dysentery are rife. The World Health
Organisation estimates up to 1.5 million children die a year in India from such illnesses.
More than a hundred population centers along the Gange river's 2500-kilometre length dump a total of
1300 million liters of waste into the river every day.
A “superstition” of many Hindus in India is that washing your baby in the Holy Ganges River is a good
thing. Since starting this superstition, the Ganges has become more polluted.
Some irony is involved in this superstition, however, because apparently if infants are exposed to the
virus that causes polio at a very young age, they become immune to it and typically will not be struck by
polio later in life.
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