Construction of the first phase of a Sino-Japanese drinking-water project was completed recently in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

The project, initiated two years ago by Chinese Ministry of Water Resources and the International Cooperation Agency of Japan, involved a total investment of 20 million yuan (over US$2.4 million).

The project will help to improve the water quality in Togtoh County in the autonomous region, which is located in a droughty area in north China, and frequently experiences drought.

Local residents in the county could only drink groundwater reserved in the shallow layer of the earth, which contains too much fluorine, and many of them have caught diseases like dental fluorosis and arsenic poisoning.

The Togtoh County has a population of some 30,000 people. Statistics show that 60 percent of the residents in the villages used to get such diseases.

Local government has tried hard to improve people's drinking water conditions, but little effects could be seen.

With the project, experts have dug as deep as 4,000 meters under the ground in an area of 5,600 square meters to search for clean water resources.

At present, some 2,600 people in 43 villages are able to drink clean water, and all the population in the county will soon say farewell to the diseases caused by the low quality of water.

(Xinhua 11/23/2000)