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Floods cut off 12m in India
02/08/2007 10:27 - (SA)
Patna, India - Rescue operations were under way on Thursday as the number of people stranded by floods from torrential monsoon rains and glacial snowmelt climbed to 12 million across north India, officials said.
Bihar, where flood waters have affected almost seven million people, and Assam were among the worst affected states.
"A total of 6.89 million people are reeling under the effects of the floods," said Satish Chandra Jha, the top officials from Bihar's relief and rehabilitation department.
Over 3 000 villages were waterlogged, the official added.
1 000 dead
Nearly 1 000 people have died in India since the onset of monsoon rains in June, according to a tally compiled from officials and media reports.
Several rivers had burst their banks in the north of impoverished Bihar state while in other parts dams had been forced to discharge brimming water, the official added in the state capital Patna.
Charity Oxfam, which said it was working with local aid groups, expressed concern that a lack of clean drinking water could spark widespread waterborne illness.
"Providing safe drinking water and addressing public health is essential because it saves lives," Lalchand Garg, Oxfam's manager in eastern India, said in a statement.
At least 25 people have died due to the floods in Bihar in the past week, but the figure could rise.
Officials were also grappling to provide relief in northeastern Assam, where 5.5 million people have been displaced by floods.
'Working on a war footing'
"Relief and rescue workers are working on a war footing. But in this kind of a devastating flood, we know we cannot satisfy each and everybody," Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi told AFP.
Baby food and water purifying tablets were being dispatched, Gogoi said, but people stranded in Senimari village, just 75km east of Assam's main city, Guwahati, told AFP they had yet to see either.
Six more people drowned in the state overnight, taking the toll from flood-related deaths in Assam in the past week to 33.
In the capital New Delhi, a night of heavy rain left many parts of the city under several feet of water, causing traffic chaos.
Flooding across north and northeast India claimed more than 150 lives in July, most of them in the last week, including 39 in Uttar Pradesh.
In neighbouring Bangladesh, monsoon rains have killed about 46 people and displaced or marooned millions.
- AFP
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