The Korean government is establishing water supply systems in the villages of Phalia, Mandi Bahauddin with a grant of US$4 million.

Around 80,000 population of that area will be beneficiary of the project. Underground water of the region has been contaminated by the effluent of sugar mills in Phalia to cause health issues to the local population and huge damage to the environment conditions.

Trillions of tonnes of water have been pumped up from deep underground reservoirs in every part of the world, says report

Humanity's unquenchable thirst for fresh water is driving up sea levels even faster than melting glaciers, according to new research. The massive impact of the global population's growing need for water on rising sea levels is revealed in a comprehensive assessment of all the ways in which people use water.

On the 20th anniversary of the saola's discovery, conservationists say the population of the reclusive species has dropped dramatically

Wild saola caught on a camera-trapped in Bolikhamxay Province, central Laos
An 'Asian unicorn' or saola caught on a camera-trapped in Bolikhamxay Province, central Laos in 1999. Photograph: William Robichaud/WWF International

Poaching in Vietnam and Laos may be driving the "Asian unicorn" to extinction, warns the WWF on the twentieth anniversary of its discovery.

The water supply to tens of thousands of households in two prefectures near Tokyo was cut off Saturday after local checks found it was contaminated with a cancer-causing chemical.

The city of Noda, Chiba Prefecture, some 30 kilometers from central Tokyo, said it had stopped supplies to a major part of the city. Most of the neighboring city of Kashiwa also has no tap water supply.

Water supplies have been cut to a total of 210,000 households in Chiba, where the two cities are located, according to Jiji Press news agency.

Floods triggered by heavy rains left two people missing and damaged homes in Northwest China's Gansu province Sunday, local authorities said.

From 10 pm Sunday to 1:30 am Monday, floods battered several counties and districts in the provincial capital of Lanzhou, leaving two people missing in Gucheng village and destroying a single home in Shengou village, according to the provincial government's general office.

Scientists have identified thousands of sites in the Arctic where methane that has been stored for many millennia is bubbling into the atmosphere.

The methane has been trapped by ice, but is able to escape as the ice melts.

Writing in the journal Nature Geoscience, the researchers say this ancient gas could have a significant impact on climate change.

Methane is the second most important greenhouse gas after CO2 and levels are rising after a few years of stability.

A small earthquake with a magnitude of 2.3 on the Richter scale hit the western province of Kanchanaburi on Monday, the Meteorological Department's Seismological Bureau reported.

The earthquake struck at 11.51am in Sai Yok district.

There were no reports of damage or casualties.

Pakistan will finally ink the gas deal with Turkmenistan in Ashgabad on May 23-24 under which it would start importing in 2016 the gas of 1.365 bcf per day under $ 7.6 billion TAPI gas line project at a cost of 70 per cent parity of crude oil at Multan and 50 percent of crude oil at Afghan border, a senior official told Pakistan Observer.

“A delegation headed by Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Dr Asim Husain on Sunday left for Turkmenistan to sign Gas Sales Purchase Agreement. India which is also part of the project will also sign its GSAP with Turkmestan.”

The Philippine fisheries chief on Sunday said he had ordered a study into a foreign species called the ‘knife fish’ that was posing a threat to the local fishing industry at the country’s largest lake.
The knife-shaped fish are reported to be multiplying in Laguna Lake where they are displacing the native species, said Asis Perez, head of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources.
‘It is carnivorous. It will compete with our existing natural fish. We have yet to get a full appreciation of the damage caused by this fish,’ he told AFP.

A coordinated plan of five ministries to accelerate the reduction of maternal and child under-nutrition in the country is taking pace, officials said.

National Planning Commission has recently prepared a six-year plan to improve the nutrition of babies up to two years of age through the coordinated efforts of the ministries of health, education, agriculture, local development and physical planning and works.