Post by Ghulam Mustufa on Jul 14, 2004 10:47:49 GMT
Seven million threatened as floods cut off India and Bangladesh
By Justin Huggler (Independent) in Delhi
14 July 2004
More than seven million people were in danger last night as the worst floods in more than a decade spread across India, Bangladesh and Nepal.
Entire villages have been swept away. More than 100 people have died in India in the past few days alone, and the waters are still rising.
The scale of the disaster is immense. More than two million people have been left homeless in India's Assam state. Another million are homeless in nearby Bihar. Millions more are trapped in their homes. Many have been forced to take their families on to the roofs.
North-east India was cut off from the rest of the country for a second day yesterday. Railway bridges were swept away. Roads were buried. The air force sent helicopters to drop food and tarpaulins to those stranded on rooftops.
The total death toll across South Asia since flooding began in June is 270, but millions are at risk from water-borne diseases. At least 12 people were buried alive in their homes yesterday by landslides triggered by the flooding. Nineteen drowned.
"This is the worst flooding in recent memory," Tarun Gogoi, the chief minister of Assam, said. Twenty-two of the state's 24 districts were under water. "The high water current has washed away rows and rows of villages. The condition of the people is really devastating."
The famous tea gardens of Assam are under water. The endangered Indian one-horned rhino is in peril from the floods: a game reserve which contains 1,600 rhinos has been flooded. Manmohan Singh, the Indian Prime Minister, has approved 1.8bn rupees (£21m) in emergency aid for Assam alone.
The local authorities were issuing pleas for help yesterday. There is a serious shortage of boats, and the continuing bad weather has made it hard for emergency workers to reach some areas.
To imagine the scale of the flooding is hard unless you have seen the landscape. North-east India and Bangladesh make up one of the largest flood plains in the world. The Brahmaputra river, which has burst its banks in Assam, is immense: its normal course is wider than a European flood even when it is not overflowing.
The entire area is criss-crossed with tributaries, most of them twice as wide as the Thames. When it floods here, it is on a biblical scale.
Scores of people die in monsoon floods almost every year in this area; last year there were hundreds of deaths. But, ominously, reports from the region say these are the worst floods in more than a decade.
In the Bangladeshi city of Sylhet, which was cut off from the rest of the country with parts of knee-deep in water, officials said the floods were the worst since 1988, when two-thirds of the country was under water.
Ten people drowned in Bangladesh yesterday, including a mother and her young son. The worst-affected areas have been upstream in India and Nepal. But in Nepal the waters are subsiding. Bangladesh is bracing itself as the flood waters move down the Ganges and Brahmaputra and the heavy rains continue.
In India, even as the North-east staggered under the onslaught, drought warnings were issued for much of the rest of the country. While the monsoon has been heavier than usual in the North-east, across much of India there has been much less rain than expected. Delhi has had just a single hour of rain, at a time of year when torrential downpours are the norm. In the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, nearly 3,000 farmers have committed suicide over the past six years because drought has destroyed their crops. At one end of India they are dying from floods, at the other they are dying from drought.
The previous government backed a scheme that was supposed to solve both problems: a plan to link 30 rivers that would have amounted to diverting the courses of the Ganges and Brahmaputra. Environmentalists said that it would be an ecological disaster, and Bangladesh opposes any attempt to divert the rivers.
That leaves India still needing to find a way to save half its people from the water, and the other half from the lack of it.
14 July 2004 11:03
By Justin Huggler (Independent) in Delhi
14 July 2004
More than seven million people were in danger last night as the worst floods in more than a decade spread across India, Bangladesh and Nepal.
Entire villages have been swept away. More than 100 people have died in India in the past few days alone, and the waters are still rising.
The scale of the disaster is immense. More than two million people have been left homeless in India's Assam state. Another million are homeless in nearby Bihar. Millions more are trapped in their homes. Many have been forced to take their families on to the roofs.
North-east India was cut off from the rest of the country for a second day yesterday. Railway bridges were swept away. Roads were buried. The air force sent helicopters to drop food and tarpaulins to those stranded on rooftops.
The total death toll across South Asia since flooding began in June is 270, but millions are at risk from water-borne diseases. At least 12 people were buried alive in their homes yesterday by landslides triggered by the flooding. Nineteen drowned.
"This is the worst flooding in recent memory," Tarun Gogoi, the chief minister of Assam, said. Twenty-two of the state's 24 districts were under water. "The high water current has washed away rows and rows of villages. The condition of the people is really devastating."
The famous tea gardens of Assam are under water. The endangered Indian one-horned rhino is in peril from the floods: a game reserve which contains 1,600 rhinos has been flooded. Manmohan Singh, the Indian Prime Minister, has approved 1.8bn rupees (£21m) in emergency aid for Assam alone.
The local authorities were issuing pleas for help yesterday. There is a serious shortage of boats, and the continuing bad weather has made it hard for emergency workers to reach some areas.
To imagine the scale of the flooding is hard unless you have seen the landscape. North-east India and Bangladesh make up one of the largest flood plains in the world. The Brahmaputra river, which has burst its banks in Assam, is immense: its normal course is wider than a European flood even when it is not overflowing.
The entire area is criss-crossed with tributaries, most of them twice as wide as the Thames. When it floods here, it is on a biblical scale.
Scores of people die in monsoon floods almost every year in this area; last year there were hundreds of deaths. But, ominously, reports from the region say these are the worst floods in more than a decade.
In the Bangladeshi city of Sylhet, which was cut off from the rest of the country with parts of knee-deep in water, officials said the floods were the worst since 1988, when two-thirds of the country was under water.
Ten people drowned in Bangladesh yesterday, including a mother and her young son. The worst-affected areas have been upstream in India and Nepal. But in Nepal the waters are subsiding. Bangladesh is bracing itself as the flood waters move down the Ganges and Brahmaputra and the heavy rains continue.
In India, even as the North-east staggered under the onslaught, drought warnings were issued for much of the rest of the country. While the monsoon has been heavier than usual in the North-east, across much of India there has been much less rain than expected. Delhi has had just a single hour of rain, at a time of year when torrential downpours are the norm. In the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, nearly 3,000 farmers have committed suicide over the past six years because drought has destroyed their crops. At one end of India they are dying from floods, at the other they are dying from drought.
The previous government backed a scheme that was supposed to solve both problems: a plan to link 30 rivers that would have amounted to diverting the courses of the Ganges and Brahmaputra. Environmentalists said that it would be an ecological disaster, and Bangladesh opposes any attempt to divert the rivers.
That leaves India still needing to find a way to save half its people from the water, and the other half from the lack of it.
14 July 2004 11:03