Worldwide, 2.2 million people a year die from diseases due to dirty water and sanitation - many of them children in urban slums. Child mortality rates in cities without proper sanitation are 10 to 20 times higher than those in cities with adequate sanitation. In Mumbai, India, 92 per cent of the city's 23 million inhabitants live in slums, with an average density of around 2,000 people per hectare. In some of these slums, 50 families have to share a single toilet.
Red Cross World Disasters Report 2004 (p0872)
Photo: Charles Page/International Federation
