Parasites in the Water

As usual I went to school in the morning with an empty water bottle and when I was about to fill it up at the water cooler, I noticed a piece of paper stuck to the side of the water cooler. It is one whole page of gibberish norwegian language that makes no sense to us except the last line in English that is handwritten. It says something like "The local health authorities advises its people to boil the water for 3 mintues before drinking." Oh ok... and so my friends and I thought the authorities just wanted people to boil the water before drinking as it is a little yellowish. And since we've already drunk from this water cooler for the past 2 months, we thought nothing of it and filled up our bottles.

And then halfway through our lecture, during one of the breaks in between, the guest lecturer kindly told us something which has nothing to do with the lecture at all. She said "This has nothing to do with Maritime Law but I thought I would tell you about it since not all of you might understand Norwegian. The health authorities has advises to boil the water before drinking as P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E.S are found in the water." OMG. Horrified!! All of us quickly went to empty our bottles and so I only had a drop of water for the entire morning. When I came back to my hostel, there was a piece of paper containing the same information being pasted on the main door. So now we know how serious the situation could possibly be. I had just boiled some water and is waiting for it to cool.

But wait.. I'm using an electric kettle that takes less than a minute to boil 1 litre of water....but the authorities said to boil for 3 minutes... so shouls I boil it for 3 minutes?? But how?? The kettle cuts off the electric supply once it boils...


/edit I've been very busy for the past hour boiling kettle after kettle of water and then finding some pots to store them. Why? Coz the advice has been extended to boiling water used for drinking, cooking and even brushing teeth! -_-". Basically any water that goes through the mouth have to be boiled.

But I don't understand why we have to boil the water used for cooking since the water will naturally be boiled when we're cooking right?

Those who are interested can go to here - Oslo Water Unsafe