A facility that can supply clean water for 10,000 people in Dong Van town of the northern mountainous province of Ha Giang was handed over to local authorities on February 28.

The project, which was built in early 2013 with a capacity of 850 cubic metres per day, providing on a daily basis an average of 80 litres of water per person, was seen as the first step to help improve living conditions for local people in the Dong Van Karst Plateau – one of the most disadvantaged localities in Vietnam where water for daily activities is hard to find.

According to Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Nguyen Thai Lai, the ministry’s water resource research and planning centre has conducted a survey in the plateau, which resulted in 23 drill holes capable of providing a combined of 9,000 cu m per day, meeting the need of 100,000 people.

The ministry will continue building similar facilities in other districts in the plateau such as Meo Vac, Quan Ba and Yen Minh to ensure water supply for residents, especially during the dry season.

Dong Van Stone Plateau, a member of the Global Network of National Geo-parks since 2010, is 80 percent limestone and contains the fossils of thousands of species of prehistoric creatures from 400-600 million years ago. It is home to 250,000 people from 17 different ethnic groups.-VNA