DEVASTATING FLOODS HIT SOUTH ASIA

[Anonymous]

Devastating floods hit South Asia
Surviving the floods
Almost
20 million people have been displaced as some of the worst floods for
years have hit a wide swathe of northern India, Bangladesh and
Nepal.Roads have been washed away and hundreds of villages have been
cut off by swollen rivers.A BBC correspondent in the Indian state of
Assam says the air force is organising food drops, but they are nowhere
near enough.Almost 200 people have died in the floods in the last few
days.In Bangladesh thousands of families are on the move in search of
higher ground.
    
THE AFFECTED AREAS
India: 125 people killed and 12 million stranded, mostly in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Assam,Bangladesh: 64 people have been killed and seven million are maroonedNepal: Thousands of people displaced in the south

Hundreds
of thousands of people across the affected area are at risk from hunger
and disease.The BBC’s South Asia correspondent, Damian Grammaticas,
says that food, clean drinking water and medical aid are the
priorities, but just a fraction of those who need them are receiving
supplies as aid agencies and government teams struggle to get
through.It has been raining heavily in the region for 20 days. Some
rivers have seen their levels rise nine or 10 metres, swamping
embankments and submerging huge tracts of land.Initial government
figures say at least 125 people have been killed in India in recent
days, and around 64 in Bangladesh.It means that more than 1,000 people
have died across South Asia since the start of the annual monsoon in
mid-June.The number of dead is expected to rise sharply as news comes
in from more remote areas. An estimated five million hectares of farm
land is under water.In some areas, the floods are being called the
worst in living memory.
   
THE ASIAN MONSOON
Monsoon winds blow north-easterly for one half of the year, and from the south-west for the other half,South-westerly
winds bring the heavy rains from June to Sept,Winds arrive in southern
India six weeks before the north west,Annual rainfall varies
considerably

The bulk of the rain is now expected in central India, a region which has so far received a weaker monsoon.
Already parts of the state of Maharashtra are waterlogged.In Assam, in
north-eastern India, three feet of rain fell in July.People in the
state have clashed with police in their desperation for food, shelter
and medicine.in Uttar Pradesh the army was called in to evacuate 500
villages.The two worst affected districts are reported to be Gorakhpur
and Kushinagar, although water levels in major rivers there are
reported to have stopped rising for the moment.At least 121 relief
camps and 34 cattle camps have been set up in the flood-affected areas
of Bihar.

Army assistance
Many
roads and bridges in the states of Bihar and Assam have been damaged,
making it harder for the authorities to get relief material to those
affected.Officials in the Bangladeshi district of Sirajganj are
struggling to reach some of those marooned by the rising waters.The
BBC’s John Sudworth – in Sirajganj – says that a lack of boats is
hampering the relief effort, so rafts are being constructed from banana
trees.

Furthermore, there are food shortages.
“Everything
is underwater,” says mother of seven Musamat Manwara Khatoum as she
stands knee-deep in water.”We’ve lost our crops, there’s nowhere to put
the children down, not even a place to cook.”Forecasters in the area
say some river levels are still rising but the situation is not yet as
severe as the flooding in 2004 in which 700 people lost their lives and
millions had to leave their homes.In Nepal, several rivers that flow
down from the Himalayas have burst their banks in the heavily populated
and low-lying Terai region that borders Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.The
country’s Red Cross says a quarter of a million people have been
affected by rains.There have been deadly landslides in the highlands
and floods have hit dozens of districts in the low-lying Terai
region.Have you been affected by flooding? Send us your experiences
using the form below.

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August 3, 2007 at 11:48 AM