Chinese woman suffers liver damage, other health issues over drinking 'waste water' for five years

A recent incident has come to light wherein a Chinese woman has complained about liver damage after drinking ‘waste water’ for five years simply due to the plumber’s error in installing her water purifier, South China Morning Post report said.

Though the water purifier was installed wrongly, it was only weeks later that she found issues with the water quality, the report added.

The woman then bought a ‘water quality pen’ device which helped her understand that the water that came out of the purifier was much worse in quality as compared to tap water.

As per the reading of the device, the TDS (TDS stands for total dissolved solids, which is an index to measure water purity) level of the water was at 600, which is more than double of tap water.

Taking suggestions from internet users, the woman then checked the purifier, and to her surprise found that the machine was wrongly installed, the report further stated.

The wrong installation of the purifier led to the purified water getting released in the sewer and the ‘concentrated water’ reaching the taps for consumption. Hence, the woman had to drink waste water, filled with all the impurities for five years.

Complaining about her health condition, the woman stated that she had irregular periods for the past six months, and also suffered mild liver damage, which the doctors found out a month ago.

The publication quoting her said, “I'm afraid the waste water, which contains plenty of chemical materials, might have a bad effect on my health.” “But I do not have evidence to prove the connection between the waste water and my health issues,” she added.

The water purifier was manufactured by Xiaomi, a leading consumer product manufacturer in the country and was installed by one of their installers, the report stated.

The water purifier was later checked by one of Xiaomi workers who confirmed the plumbing error. He also mentioned that the company has agreed to change a filter element in the machine.

Going forward, he also stated that the worker who had installed the water purifier five years ago was no longer with the company, hence discussions are still on over how to deal with the issue.

The woman however has denied the company’s offer of change of filter element.

“This equipment has not been used in a normal way for a single day,” she asserted. “I have been drinking the waste water for five years. How do you compensate me for my health problems?” she added.

The report further mentioned about another similar incident that took happened in 2022 resulting in an infant boy drinking milk mixed with waste water for months.

However in this case the name of the water purifier was not mentioned and whether the baby’s family was compensated or not still remained unclear.