Tokyo faces water shortage

By Gauthaman Bhaskaran

TOKYO, AUG. 11. Believe it or not, even a highly industrialised nation like Japan faces water shortage. Scenes of people waiting with buckets for water vehicles remind this correspondent of Chennai, where a similar crisis is on.

High temperatures, uncomfortable levels of humidity and below average rainfall have forced the Japanese authorities to cut down the water supply by 10 per cent in Tokyo. Towns and cities in five neighbouring prefectures have also adopted a similar measure.

There can be further outflow restrictions if conditions at the reservoirs worsen.

Eight reservoirs on the Tone river have very little water, in fact just under 51 per cent of their capacities against the normal summer figure of 81 per cent. The largest here, at Yagisawa, is just 30 per cent full. The situation can well match the 1994 drought, the worst in the country's history. Water ceased flowing in the taps of 15 million homes that year.

This time, as the days pass, the meteorological office does not offer much hope. Rainfall will, at best, be scanty, it predicts.

However, the Government is gearing up to take the problem head on. The decades-old rain-making devices are being cleaned up. It has been five years since an attempt was made to induce rain artificially. These machines - which help vaporise an acetone solution of silver iodide and release it into the atmosphere - have been installed in Tokyo and the adjoining Yamanashi Prefecture.

And like Chennai - which once experimented with seeding rain- bearing clouds - Tokyo is still not sure how effective these steps would be. However, what is certain is that the rain-making equipment can work only when there are water- bearing clouds. It can neither induce rain on a clear day nor boost the volume when the drops are already falling.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : International
Previous : S. African women caught in a contradiction
Next     : U.N. to examine Khmer Rouge trial law