Kelantan’s dirty water supply : Water facilities upgrade needed - Expert

SHAH ALAM – The people of Kelantan have been taking to social media their frustration and anger on the seemingly continuous issue with Kelantan’s contaminated water since February, this year.

This was after their complaints to the authorities fell on deaf ears.

Photos and videos showing brownish to black and slimy waters in the state were being shared on various social media platforms such as Twitter, TikTok and Instagram, among others.

Some had even liken the colour of the water to coffee and teh tarik flowing freely from the water tap of their homes.

In a more serious situation, they revealed that the water contamination in the state had led them to suffer from skin diseases.

The people of the state have been urging for the state government to personally check the water contamination lest it will cause more serious health issues like cholera, diarrhoea, dysentery, hepatitis A, typhoid and polio.

Professional engineer and water quality specialist Dr Zaki Zainuddin when contacted about the issue said the water facilities in Kelantan needed a lot of improvement.

He said the government needed to upgrade the infrastructure to solve the water contamination issue.

He said in Kelantan, water sources originated from the underground which naturally has high iron content.

This, he said had made the water appear reddish or brownish.

“This is quite a problem for the people especially if they are doing the laundry as the stains will be hard to remove.

“I am unsure whether the high iron content in the waters in the state caused skin diseases,” he told Sinar Daily.

He advised those who suffered from skin diseases to refer to medical experts.

He said the water treatment process of stabilising the water’s iron content included the use of coagulant.

However, in Kelantan’s case, he said that a high amount of coagulant needed to be used.

“This issue is not a matter of how can the underground waters have too much iron because all underground water sources will have iron,” he said.

He said he was of the view that the main issue lies within the fact that Kelantan does not have a proper support infrastructure which was why the problem with Kelantan’s contaminated water remained unsolved.

“The system and distribution network in Kelantan are not very good, so the people have to rely on underground water sources,” he said.

As of now, the situation of the people in the state left them to rely on water vending machines usually located far away from their homes which could be burdening especially for those who live in rural areas.

Some even said that the water they obtained from those vending machines could only last them a day.

The people also had to purchase a personal water machines to extract water, but this had then cause other neighbourhoods to have lower water pressure.