The River Ganges, faced in 1985 with a $250 million antipollution campaign, is befouled by chemical wastes, human excrement, cremated bodies, and cattle carcasses. Faithful Hindus bathe daily in it and drink its water, thus making themselves susceptible to various diseases, the two most common of which are gastrointestinal disorders and infectious hepatitis. (They believe it the physical manifestation of the Almighty and so spiritually pure that it cannot be polluted.) Specially bred snapping turtles (that eat what is left of the corpses but do not nip at live bathers) are part of the cleanup programme.
All the main rivers of Russia - including the water basins of the Volga (Kosarikov), Don, Kama, Kuban, Oka and Obj - were in 1992 calculated to have between 10 and 100 times the permitted viral and bacterial levels.
In the Volga basin, where pollution levels have caused high chloroform levels, water pollution is linked to decreasing longevity.
2. Eighty percent of China's major rivers are so degraded they no longer support fish.