Due to the ongoing dry season, animals are gathering at an artificial reservoir in front of the Telmachhara Forest Office

More than 500 poor families, including many from the indigenous Garo community, have been hit by an acute crisis of drinking water in 15 villages under Mymensingh’s Dhobaura upazila.

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.

"Water is the canary in the coalmine of climate change," WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said in a statement accompanying the State of Global Water Resources Report.

The residents of six coastal upazilas under Bagerhat district are grappling with an acute crisis for fresh water for domestic consumption since the onset of dry season.

Residents of the hilly areas on both sides of Chimbuk-Neelgiri road in Bandarban have been facing a severe water crisis amid the ongoing hot spell.

The water crisis in Khulna city has deepened amidst the relentless heatwave, due to plummeting groundwater levels and the inability of the Water Supply and Sewerage Authority to meet the residents’ water needs adequately.

Climate impact on groundwater and solutions

On April 9, Mukul Soren, a Santal farmer in Rajshahi, drank pesticide in a suicide attempt over not getting irrigation water from the same deep tubewell that allegedly led to the suicide of two farmers, also Santals, last year.

An acute crisis of water has gripped some parts of the capital, causing unbearable sufferings to the residents already enduring hours of power cuts amid the heatwave.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi launches a 60-billion-rupee ($842 million) plan to tackle water shortages in the country’s seven heartland states where agriculture is a mainstay.

Nearly a quarter of the world's population lives in 17 countries facing extremely high water stress, close to "day zero" conditions when the taps run dry, according to a report.

Purna Mala Tanchangya straps a basket on her back and carries as many pots and pans as possible to go and collect water at least twice a day from a well that is about two to three kilometres away.

A quarter of the world's health facilities lack basic water services, impacting 2 billion people, the United Nations says, warning that unhygienic conditions could fuel the global rise of deadly superbugs.

There is a district in the south-west of Bangladesh which is at the epicentre of a drinking water crisis. A crisis that is being exacerbated everyday owing to the realities of climate change.

Unabated destruction of forests coupled with stone theft and use of deep tubewells at tobacco plantations have dried up the once mighty Roambo jhiri (a creek or small stream) in remote hills of Bandarban's Alikadam upazila.

Countries like Saudi Arabia are using solar powered desalination plants to turn saltwater into drinkable water to meet the worldwide water crisis.

As the sweltering heat makes life intolerable for Dhaka dwellers, a severe water crisis has made things go from bad to worse for residents of Dhanmondi...

With a heat wave sweeping the country for more than two weeks in the absence of rain, sufferings of the residents in several parts of the city have worsened due to an acute crisis of water for the last few weeks.