Pacific

Australia helps Marshalls with water storage

12:03 pm on 15 May 2012

Australia is helping improve access to fresh, safe drinking water for every household on Ebeye, one of the major islands in the Marshall Islands.

Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Richard Marles, says Australia is helping provide 220 water tanks to improve water and sanitation.

This comes after 150 were supplied last year.

Mr Marles says soon all 12,000 people on Ebeye will be able to store fresh water.

Lack of fresh drinking water is a problem felt across the Marshall Islands and causes significant health problems.

In the past decade, there have been alarming increases in the reported cases of gastroenteritis on Majuro and Ebeye, as well as an outbreak of typhoid on Majuro in 2006 and more than 2,000 reported cases of pink eye in 2008.