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| Flood-hit Indian state appeals for more help |
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Thursday, September 04, 2008
SAHARSA: Flood-hit northern India is in dire need of international aid on the level of that seen after the 2004 Asian tsunami, a state official said on Wednesday.
A large swathe of the already desperately poor state of Bihar is likely to remain under water for several months, leaving authorities coping with at least a million people who have lost everything, officials and aid workers said.
“We will definitely need the support of international organisations and agencies, the same as after the tsunami (in 2004) or the Gujarat earthquake” in 2001, said Bihar disasters minister Nitish Mishra.
“It is not possible for just the government to have a complete rehabilitation policy on its own. Whatever more is available, we need it.”
The flooding started on Aug 18, when a river burst through defences upstream in Nepal and changed course to cut across a large rural area in Bihar state.
Officials said work to fix the flood walls and divert the Kosi river back to its normal course cannot begin before the rainy season ends in October, and may not even be completed before early next year.
About 600,000 people have already been evacuated from the flood plains, but 350,000 more still need to be plucked from roofs or isolated high ground and brought to safety, they say.
However, aid workers said that in some areas the currents were still too strong, and that much of the food being dropped by air had landed in water.
“All the wells and water sources are gone. We foresee a scarcity of water, milk, food. Crops have been destroyed. Land will not be fit for cultivation for six to seven months after the waters recede,” said SP Singh, Red Cross chief in Bihar.
Aditi Kapur of the British aid group Oxfam said authorities were still struggling to come to terms with the disaster.
“The magnitude is greater than what the state has been able to handle. No one was prepared. More needs to be done,” she told AFP.
UN agencies say a total of three million people have been affected by the disaster.
Evacuated villagers, some with buffaloes and cows they managed to rescue, have crowded into every safe building on the edge of the vast flood plain — schools, universities, temples and Madrassas have all turned into shelters.
“A population of at least a million will be homeless and they may not get their homes back,” said Mukesh Puri, emergency specialist with the United Nations children’s agency Unicef.
In the worst-hit areas near the town of Saharsa, 150 kilometres east of the state capital Patna, only tree tops were visible above the water.
Some families were camped on road embankments.
Hira Sada, a 60-year-old farmer, said his village was neck-deep in water — leaving him and his extended family stuck on a road along with some livestock they managed to save.
“We can’t go back for at least three months. But what can we do? There is no work,” he said.
India lost more than 16,000 people in the 2004 tsunami, which killed a total of around 220,000 people, and suffered damage estimated by the United Nations at 2.5 billion dollars.
The death toll from the latest floods is far lower — so far estimated at 100 plus dead — but the number of Indians left homeless is comparable.
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