How to makewater safe for drinking and cooking?

Surface water and water from leaking pipes and open cisterns and wells may be contaminated with

cholera and other germs. This water should be carefully treated before drinking! There are different ways to treat surface water or other water sources that are likely to be contaminated. The quickest ways are boiling, bleaching, and adding lime or lemon. No matter how it is treated it should be settled and filtered first, or the treatment may not work.

1.Settle and filter the water.

• L et water settle until solids have settled out and water is more-or-less clear.

• Pour water through a filter made of clean fabric or a sand and charcoal filter. To use a fabric filter: Fold clean sari cloth 4 times and stretch or tie it over the mouth of a clean water jar. Pour water slowly into the jar through the cloth. After using the cloth, wash it and leave it in the sun to dry, or disinfect the cloth with bleach to kill germs. Boil or add bleach. If you have no bleach, use lemon or lime.

2.Boil or add bleach. If you have no bleach, use lemon or lime.

Boiling

• Bring water to a rapid boil for at least 1 minute.

• Pour water into a clean container to cool.

Use of bleach

Because household bleach is the most common form of chlorine, this chart shows how to disinfect water with household bleach. Household bleach may have different amounts of chlorine. Most common are 3.5% and 5%. The easiest way to measure the amount of bleach needed is to first make a mother solution (about 1% chlorine) and then add this solution to the water you want to disinfect.

First prepare the mother solution:

1. Add 1 cup of bleach to a clean, empty beer bottle.

2. Fill the bottle with clean water.

3. Shake the bottle for 30 seconds.

4. Let it sit for 30 minutes. Your mother solution is ready.

Add these amounts of the mother solution to clear water and wait at least 30 minutes before drinking the water. If the water is cloudy, you need twice as much of the bleach solution.

Use of lime or lemon

(This method will not kill allgerms, but is safer than notreatment at all and can prevent many cases of cholera)

• Add the juice of 1 lime or lemon per liter of drinking water, to kill cholera germs.

• Pour water into a clean container.

3. Keep water containers clean.

• Make sure the water storage container stays

clean! Do not put dirty containers, hands or

anything else in the water container. Pour it off

into clean cups for use.