Norway sends water purification equipment to Bangladeshi cyclone victims

Water purification systems have been sent by Norwegian Church Aid to Bangladesh to provide 40,000 cyclone victims with drinking water.

Cyclone Sidr smashed southeastern Bangladesh on Nov. 15. More than 3,000 people have been confirmed dead, and thousands more were left homeless, hungry and without clean water.

"The need for clean drinking water in many areas is acute," said Annbjoerg Eltervaag, project leader for the Oslo-based aid group. "The water sources we inspected are largely filled with garbage and wreckage after the cyclone."

She said the 5.5 ton (6.2 U.S. tons) of equipment and the experts to operate it where being flown from Oslo to the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka, and will be trucked from there to the areas where they are most needed.

The aid was funded by a 2 million kroner (US$363 million, Ђ250 million) grant from the Norwegian government.