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South Asia Flood Victims Desperate For Food And Clean Water
Patna, India (AFP) Aug 06, 2007 Many of the millions of people forced from their homes by floods across South Asia were desperate for food and drinking water on Monday as aid workers and army battled to reach them. The flooding, described as the heaviest to hit the region in decades, has affected 31 million people and killed more than 1,600 others in India, Bangladesh and Nepal since monsoon rains began pouring down in June. India's northern Bihar state has been hit hardest by the disaster, and some of the growing number of people marooned by the swirling waters have resorted to fighting for emergency food supplies. The state's disaster management chief, Manoj Srivastava, put the total number of flood-affected at 11.5 million. More than 6,000 villages were submerged, he told AFP, but added that the waters appeared to be receding. "This has been an unprecedented flood," Srivastava said. "The data shows in Bihar in several districts the rainfall has been 250 to 300 percent higher than the average for the last 30 years." An estimated two million Biharis are living outdoors, state officials said. Late Monday, a boat carrying up to 100 people overturned in the rain-swollen Ganges, an official said, adding most of the passengers were feared drowned. "So far only one body has been found, 11 people swam to safety," Shravan Kumar, local administrator of Samastipur district, 150 kilometres (93 miles) north of state capital Patna, told AFP. "The remaining people seem to have been carried away by the very strong currents of the river." The skies cleared Monday, but a UN official warned that rivers upstream in neighbouring Nepal were still overflowing. "If there is more water from Nepal then the situation will only get worse," Job Zachariah, the head of the Bihar chapter of the child welfare agency UNICEF, told AFP. Bihar's chief minister has blamed Nepal for the flooding and officials say Kathmandu must build more dams to control the flow of waters south. Nepal's foreign ministry hit back, saying overflowing Indian dams on the border have flooded the Himalayan country's low-lying regions. Helicopters were dropping thousands of emergency packets containing dry rations, candles, plastic sheets and matches over areas of northern Bihar, but some villagers said the much-needed supplies were sinking into the murky water. "Some parts of the district have got cut off in such a way with roads submerged that the people there cannot be reached by boats," said Srivastava. In devastated Darbhanga district, 125 kilometres (80 miles) northeast of the state capital Patna, villagers said they were wading through neck-high water to get clean drinking water for their families. "I have to do it or else they will die of thirst or even worse -- diseases," said Ramrati Singh, of Akharaghat village, whose family is camping along with other residents on the highway heading to Patna. At least 1,258 people have died in India as a result of this season's monsoon. Large parts of northern Uttar Pradesh and northeastern Assam states are also submerged but many villagers were returning to their homes in Assam after the rains halted. Health experts meanwhile warned of the possibility of outbreaks of water-borne diseases. "Receding floodwaters leave behind sludge and debris which become the breeding ground for epidemics," said A.K. Pande, head of the Patna Medical College and Hospital, the largest healthcare facility in Bihar. Torrential monsoon storms combined with Himalayan snow melt gave rise to massive floods in late July from Nepal through northern India and Bangladesh, where 40 percent of the land has been inundated. With 36 more deaths overnight, many of them children who drowned, the monsoon toll in Bangladesh, a delta nation prone to floods, stood at 282. More than half of them died in the last 10 days, officials said. Interim government leader Fakhruddin Ahmed made an urgent plea for assistance in a live televised address late Sunday. "I am making an appeal to people from all walks of life, irrespective of class and profession, to come forward spontaneously to the aid of the flood-affected," Ahmed said, adding that foreign aid was welcome. The military-backed government was facing its first real test as flood-hit areas reported acute shortages of food and other items even as officials said 8,000 tonnes of food had been distributed since late July. About nine million Bangladeshis have been displaced. In Nepal, at least 91 people have died in landslides and floods since the beginning of June. Some 270,000 people have also been affected, mostly in the southern plains bordering Bihar. Residents slowly began returning home Sunday as the rains began to ease, Nepali officials said.
Source: Agence France-Presse Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Related Links Bringing Order To A World Of Disasters A world of storm and tempest When the Earth Quakes
Japan To Send Quake Warnings Nationwide
Tokyo (AFP) Aug 03, 2007Japan will soon start sending earthquake warnings to the public, giving them vital seconds to prepare before one of the country's frequent tremors strikes, a top seismologist said Friday. "We will start to offer the earthquake alert system to citizens starting from October 1," Makoto Saito, who runs the system at the Japan Meteorological Agency, told AFP. The system, the result of years of research, made its debut earlier this year but so far has been confined to major businesses and public utilities. |
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