"The 500 residents of Karen state’s Yedwingone village now depend on the charity of others for clean drinking water. Until recently, each of the 120 households in this village near the state capital Hpa-an got all the water it needed from its own well. But in October villagers began noticing the water in their wells had turned black. “Our skin would itch when we used it to bathe,” said 67-year-old Thaung Nyein. “We won’t drink it.” One resident told Myanmar Now his family broke out in blisters after using the water to bathe. Monks and local civil service organizations arrived almost immediately with donated drinking water, but villagers say the giving has since tapered off. “I only have drinking water if donors show up. I have to mix distilled and boiled well water to bathe the children, and I don’t have money to go to the clinic if they get sick from it,” said Thaung Nyein. In mid-January Myanmar Now visited Yedwingone, Natkone, Ngapyawtaw, Kawpatine and Pankone villages in Hpa-an township, where locals said the same thing has happened in 22 nearby villages. Officials from the state and from a nearby factory that locals accuse of polluting the groundwater insist the water is potable and safe, but cannot explain the cause of the change in colour. Meanwhile, locals refuse to drink it..."