Floods leave 2.5 million in India marooned

People caught off-guard as area has not seen flooding in past 55 years
P. Jayaram, Straits Times 28 Aig 08;

NEW DELHI: An estimated 2.5 million people in the eastern Indian state of Bihar have been stranded after a swollen river breached its banks following torrential rains and inundated hundreds of towns and villages.

'To call it floods is an understatement. It's a catastrophe,' Bihar's chief minister Nitish Kumar said, as he urged the affected people to run to safety.

'Our top priority at the moment is to evacuate people and bring them to the safer places,' he added.

The disaster was caused by the surging waters of the river Koshi, known as 'Bihar's sorrow', for the flood havoc it unleashes every monsoon season.

The disaster this year was exceptionally bad as the river, which had shifted its course over the past 300 years, returned to its original course and inundated over 800 towns and villages that lie between the old and new courses.

The Koshi is a cross-border river between Nepal and India and a major tributary of the river Ganges. The unstable nature of the river is attributed to the heavy silt it carries during the monsoon season.

Television news channels showed unending stretches of muddy water with only the tops of houses and trees visible in most places. The water is between 2m and 2.5m high in many places. The marooned people were seen atop houses and high grounds waiting to be rescued.

'The area hasn't seen floods for the past 55 years and therefore people were caught unawares. The army has been called in. Using 300 boats, we have evacuated thousands,' state minister for disaster management, Mr Nitish Mishra, said.

Mrs Ranjeeta Ranjan, an MP for the area, said: 'Waters are still rising, hundreds of bodies are floating in the water.'

Health officials said cases of diarrhoea and fever had been reported in the affected areas because people were forced to drink the contaminated waters.

'Given the scorching heat, unsafe drinking water and poor hygiene conditions, cases may soon increase,' the United Nations Children's Fund said in a statement in New Delhi.

Officials put the death toll from the floods at 46 - but it is expected to rise.

The federal Disaster Management Authority has rushed 48 motorised boats and 31 Indian Air Force helicopters to join in the rescue and relief operations.

The Koshi has also wreaked havoc in Nepal, where it originates. Nepali papers said thousands of people had been left homeless and more than 10,000ha of cultivable land had been submerged.

Nepal's new Prime Minister Prachanda, who visited the flood-hit areas last week, blamed the Koshi barrage, built by India in Nepal under a bilateral pact 50 years ago, for the floods in his country.

He branded the pact as 'a historic blunder' and said Nepal had written to India to repair the embankments' damage.