Poor drainage system poses health risk in Dla

The practice of bad sanitation is growing in Douala, despite the environmental and health risks. This has somehow become a new "architectural trend. Wastewater evacuation pipes are sent outdoors along the walls and the pipes lead to a channel, either in the open air to discharged waste.

So even the administrative authorities of Douala 5 requested action against the owners of this kind of accommodation in Bonamoussadi, yet considered as residential area. The phenomenon extends to the entire city and the dangers are many.

According to the report framework for environmental management and social project for liquid remediation in Cameroon, Douala, in some cases, wastewater is discharged directly into drains.

In addition, they often clog the walkways. "To better understand the problem of discharges of domestic water in the gutters, it must first take a look on the plan of occupation in the houses, the incivility of the inhabitants of the city, and the structure of the soil.

The constructions of houses that do not comply with any modern development plan are a perfect illustration of urban disorder. Just a small corner equipped with a valve and at the slightest drop of rain, it opens the valve and release the contents.

Only poverty can probably justify the behaviour of the owners of the buildings and other opulent houses whose inhabitants release their sanitary sludge at the slightest drop of rain, simply because to call on the garbage services has a cost', analyses Didier Yimkoua, environmentalist.

In terms of health, explains the specialist, these waters have stagnated with nasty odors. They are the natural habitats of larvae that eventually turn into malaria vectors, anopheles mosquitoes.

This wastewater contaminates wells or drilling systems when they come in contact leading to water-borne diseases such as cholera, amoebic dysentery. In terms of the environment, he added, sewage discharged biodegradable particles without treatment "are at the origin of the phenomenon of eutrophication streams characterized by flooding and other harmful algae.