Cancer in Punjab’s heartland

Pakistan’s water challenges are not just restricted to demand side shortages. Equally threatening is the menace of freshwater contamination which is fast becoming the most severe long-term risk to public health.

While there is disagreement on possible causes, research community agrees that up to 50 to 60 million people in Pakistan are exposed to arsenic laced water abstracted from underground wells. According to one report by Council for Research in Water Sources, arsenic poisoning exposed population in Pakistan constitutes close to one-third of total world population living in high risk areas (read “Contamination: solving the ground water puzzle” published in these pages on July 20, 2018).

In May this year, the curious case of two villages of Kot Assadullah and Kalalanwala near Lahore-Sheikupura industrial area made rounds in the news for extremely high incidence of cancer. Up to 60 percent of the village population has been affected with some form of dental deformities and bone impairment. Some people have become permanently disabled, with one leg shorter than the other. One village dweller is quoted to have said that “livestock that even comes into contact with this water does not survive for more than a week”.

Arsenic contamination is now recognized world over to increase risk for lung and mouth cancers. While no scientific study has been commissioned in the area that could conclude definite causes of the epidemic, the region suffers from industrial waste discharge and sewage contamination.

According to Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry, 90 percent of factories in and around the city dump their waste untreated in open pits or discharge untreated water in the streams that also seeps into the ground. On the other hand, poor sewage treatment infrastructure has resulted in broken lines leaving huge pools of filthy water increasing incidence of water borne disease. Untreated sewage water, of course, also makes it way to the water tables underground as well.

Population explosion in urban areas of central Punjab during the last three decades has resulted in a shift in reliance from canal water to groundwater abstracted from tube wells. A confluence of factors including poor industrial waste regulation, near absence of sewage infrastructure, and tube wells tapping into underground water pockets tainted with toxins has exposed the heartland of Punjab to diseases that were relatively known until recently.

While consensus may not exist on the causes of the epidemic, bottom line is that large section of the urban population is consuming untreated and affected groundwater. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the water is not just unsafe for drinking but also dangerous so long as populations are exposed to it in any form. The first order of business for incoming provincial government, thus, should be to immediately commission research to ascertain level of contamination and take mitigative steps before it is too later.