More rain threatens marooned villages

Patna: Indian army troops helped evacuate more than 120,000 people from floods in eastern India, but more bad weather raised fears that rivers would to continue to overflow, officials said yesterday.

The flooding, which officials say are the worst in 50 years, was caused after the Kosi river broke a dam in Nepal where it originates, unleashing huge waves of water that smashed mud embankments downstream in Bihar state.

At least one million marooned people need to be evacuated to safe places in Bihar, where over 2.5 million people have been affected by floods, Bihar Disaster Management Minister Nitish Mishra said yeterday.

"As the flood situation has remained grim, we estimate that not less than one million people have to be evacuated to safe places. It is a big challenge for the government," Mishra said.

"On an average over 200 marooned people requested me over phone to rescue them and send boats," he said.

Many villagers offered prayers and slaughtered goats to appease the Kosi, known as Bihar's "river of sorrow" for its regular floods and ability to change course.

"We are praying to the river goddess and offering her blood since only she can help us," a village woman in the worst affected Supaul district told a local newspaper.

Unbearable stench

At least two million people have been forced from their homes and a quarter of a million houses destroyed. So far 55 deaths have been officially reported in Bihar, but activists and local media put the toll many times higher.

Stranded villagers complained of an unbearable stench from rotting carcasses and the United Nations warned of the spread of water-borne disease.

TV stations showed swirling flood waters pouring into homes through windows, submerging hundreds of villages and roads and railway tracks. Telephone and power lines snapped.

Torrential rains have killed more than 1,000 people in South Asia since the monsoon began in June, mainly in India's northern state of Uttar Pradesh, where 725 people have lost their lives. Other deaths were reported from Nepal and Bangladesh.

Some experts blame the floods on heavier monsoon rains caused by global warming, while others say authorities have failed to take preventive measures and improve infrastructure.

"The administration is misleading people about the casualty, I have myself seen some 40 dead bodies at a village in Araria district alone," flood expert Dinesh Kumar Mishra told The Times of India newspaper.

Temporary camps

The newspaper quoted a villager from a badly affected district as saying he had seen at least 250 bodies at one place.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi, head of the ruling Congress party, flew over devastated areas by helicopter yesterday.

State officials said more than 120,000 had been evacuated and kept in more than 100 temporary camps, but bad weather was hampering rescue and relief operations.

"We have the army, disaster management teams, police and other groups of rescuers making every effort to save the population," said R.K. Singh, a top disaster management official. Officials said floods had destroyed more than 227,000 homes and damaged about 100,000 hectares of vegetables, wheat and paddy crops.

Survival worries: 10 days on, no end in sight

Even as they wait for government aid, the 200 residents of Bangmatiya village in Bihar's flood ravaged Madhepura district are struggling to survive by eating stale rice puff and drinking the dirty water that their houses have been marooned in for the past 10 days.

Sakhua Singh, a landless labourer in his 50s, and his family of six were promised relief by the local administration a week ago but it is yet to reach them.

"There is no way to survive without relief but we are eating baked grains and rice puff. Hopefully, we will get some aid soon," Sakhua said.

"My wife and son are unwell. We are praying that the waters will recede soon so that we can take them to a doctor," he added.

Another villager, Gangu Singh, said that children crying for milk were being pacified with roasted rice. "We are giving our children the polluted floodwater to drink. There is no other option," he said helplessly. Bangmatiya, like other villages in Madhepura district, about 225km from state capital Patna, was swamped by floodwater.