Train in central India brings water to drought-hit region

Latur, with its ravaged farmland and thirsty families, has become the unfortunate poster child for the blistering drought that is hurting tens of millions of people across 13 Indian states.

With the monsoon rains still at least a month away, the water train, which started running in April, is a desperate measure to ease a desperate situation.

Crops have failed, cattle are wasting away and long, scorching walks in search of drinking water have resulted in dozens of deaths.

Sitting with her two young children, she stares silently as an older female relative explained her husband’s death to visiting journalists.

The containers, which once carried petroleum products or vegetable oil, were chemically treated and steam-cleaned before being freshly painted for their new cargo at a railway yard in the western state of Rajasthan.