When Razia Begum, now 56, got married at just 16, water was not a concern. Like most women in her village of Banisanta in Khulna’s Dacope upazila, she collected freshwater from nearby ponds. Life was simple, and water was abundant.

Residents of Thangkhroi Para, a centuries-old village in Bandarban Sadar upazila, are grappling with an acute drinking water crisis even before the peak of summer.

At the break of dawn, women of all ages -- daughters, mothers, homemakers -- set out in search for safe drinking water.

The drinking water crisis in Sitakunda has been worsening as over 7,000 tube wells have become dysfunctional due to the fall of the groundwater layer amid scorching heat.