Lacking water for daily activities, students walk more than 1km to the stream to bathe and wash clothes.

For over 20 days, teachers and hundreds of students at Muong Lat Ethnic Boarding Secondary School (Muong Lat commune, Thanh Hoa province) have been facing a serious shortage of domestic water.

Mr. Trinh Van Cuong - Principal of Muong Lat Ethnic Boarding Secondary School (Muong Lat commune, Thanh Hoa province), said that the recent flood had caused a long section of the canal (under the management of Song Chu Irrigation Company Limited) to collapse, paralyzing the entire water supply system to the school.

Students in the mountainous area of Thanh Hoa were taken by their teachers to the stream to bathe and wash clothes because the water system leading to the school was broken.

“Due to the lack of water for daily use, every afternoon, teachers in the school have to take students to the Poong stream area to bathe and wash clothes, ensuring safety and hygiene,” Mr. Cuong informed.

According to the school leaders, the repair of the collapsed ditch has not been completed, so for now, the school will let students who live near the school go home to shower and then come back; for students who live far away, teachers will guide them and take them to the stream to shower and wash.

Previously, the school had rented a well drilled at a cost of tens of millions of dong, but even though it was drilled 120 meters deep, the amount of water was very little, only enough to serve the sanitation system.

“In previous years, when there was water, the school equipped a firewood-fired hot water system for students to bathe in. But this year, the system cannot operate because there is no water,” said the school leader.

Students and teachers have had to bathe in the stream for many days.

Muong Lat Ethnic Boarding Secondary School currently has 245 students. Faced with a shortage of water for daily use, especially for bathing in winter, the school is considering a plan to pump water to reserve for cold days, but washing clothes still requires going to the stream.

School leaders informed that in addition to the lack of water, the student dormitory system is also overloaded, with some rooms having twice the number of students than the standard.