It was a pride for Bangladesh that it brought 97% of the population under the coverage of safe drinking water through extension of rural tube well projects. But, recently this wonderful figure has been recognized as a matter of anxiety. Tube well water is carrying arsenic in toxic level to cause harmful effects to human health.

As Bangladesh faces the world's worst arsenic-poisoning crisis, international agencies like UNICEF, World Bank and the British Overseas Development Administration are facing flak for helping sink the bulk of the 3 million tubewells which now provide 95 percent of the country's drinking water. What they did not know when they launched their tubewell-installation programs in the early '70s was that deep in the alluvial sediments of the Ganges delta lurked arsenic bound up in mineral layers.

The British Geological Survey (BGS) is preparing to defend itself against a threatened lawsuit alleging that it is partly to blame for what has been described as the worst mass poisoning in history. The claimants are Bangladeshi villagers who drank arsenic-contaminated water from wells dug by the BGS during the 1980s and early 1990s.

Communities across Bangladesh are drinking poisoned water from wells that they have been assured are safe, because of flaws in an international effort to screen water for arsenic contamination.[New Scientist]

Arsenic is getting into rice, Bangladesh's staple crop, through irrigation water pumped from contaminated soils, researchers have found1. Another study shows that the act of pumping water for irrigation can raise its arsenic levels2. The findings worsen the outlook for Bangladesh's water safety crisis.

Bangladeshi communities that are already being poisoned by arsenic-tainted groundwater are facing an appalling new threat. Their rice and vegetables are also laced with high levels of arsenic.[New Scientist]

Trace levels of arsenic in drinking water increase a person's risk of developing cancer, according to a report from the prestigious US National Academy of Sciences. "Even very low concentrations appear to be associated with a higher incidence of cancer," says Robert Goyer, professor of pathology at the University of Western Ontario, who chaired the NAS investigating committee [New Scientist].