News
Lanka airlifts drinking water to Maldives facing severe shortage
View(s):Sri Lanka will send over 100,000 bottles of drinking water to the Maldives to help the country deal with the severe water shortage it is facing since Friday after the nation’s sole water purification plant was completely destroyed in a fire.
The initial consignment of 5.8 metric tonnes of bottled water was dispatched aboard a SriiLankan Airlines flight on Friday night. The stock was handed over by Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner in the Maldives, Neil Dias to the Maldivian Minister of Defence and National Security, Colonel (Rtd.) Mohamed Nazim, the Ministry of External Affairs said.
The MEA said it plans, in close coordination with SriLankan Airlines, to send over 100,000 bottles of drinking water to the Maldives in the next few days. The water will be distributed among the residents of the Maldivian capital Malé free of charge.
The Indian Government too has sent large stocks of water to Malé using its military aircraft.
Meanwhile some exporters of goods to the Maldives say that their goods were offloaded on Friday night by the airline which said that priority was being given to the goods being dispatched by the MEA.