Disease spreads as 1.4 million left stranded by floods in India, Bangladesh ( 2003-07-09 10:31) (Agencies)
The mighty Brahmaputra river burst its banks at several points, bringing to
1.4 million the number of people made homeless by floods in India and
Bangladesh, as disease, rising waters and landslides claimed 16 more lives.
Indian flood victims carry their belongings through their
flooded neighborhood in Silguri some 600 kms (375 miles) north of
Calcutta, July 8,
2003. [Reuters]
Eleven people were
killed near the Indian hill station of Darjeeling in West Bengal state when
landslides triggered by days of rain buried five houses, police said.
The landslides cut off the road between the colonial era summer resort and
the metropolis of Calcutta, said Chayan Mukherjee, inspector general of police
for West Bengal state.
Three people, including a teenage girl, were swept away in flood waters in
the state, police said.
To the east, the Brahmaputra, the 2,900-kilometer (1,800-mile) river sacred
to Hindus that winds down from the mountains of Tibet to the delta of
Bangladesh, broke its embankments around the northeastern Indian state of Assam,
submerging roads and smashing down mud embankments.
Local officials estimated 200,000 more people were left homeless Tuesday
across five districts of Assam as the rising Brahmaputra washed away their huts.
Pakistani children sit inside their flooded house after
heavy rains in Hyderabad, 160 km (100 miles) from Karachi July 8, 2003. At
least 27 people were killed in separate accidents, including eight in a
mudslide, as torrential rains lashed southern Pakistan, ambulance workers
said on Tuesday. [Reuters]
One million people had already been stranded by the floods at the weekend in
Assam, according to the provincial government.
Another 200,000 people from 121 villages in the eastern Indian state of Bihar
have also been affected, according to a statement by the province's relief
department.
Tens of thousands of people are also estimated to have been left homeless by
the floods in other parts of northeastern India and in Bangladesh.
Five people, including a child, drowned in separate incidents in the west of
Assam on Monday, a police spokesman said.
"All the five died in separate incidents when their wooden boats capsized as
they were trying to escape the fury of the floods," the spokesman said.
Another 73 people have died in Assam since early June from malaria and
Japanese encephalitis triggered by the rising muddy waters.
"The flood situation is very critical in parts of western and eastern Assam
with heavy rains all over the area," Assam Flood Control Minister Nurzamal
Sarkar told AFP.
In Bangladesh, waters were rolling down from the flooded north to the
low-lying heart of the country, according to the Flood Forecasting and Warning
Centre in the capital Dhaka.
People push a car in a flooded street after heavy rains in
Hyderabad 160 km (100 miles) from Karachi July 8, 2003. At least 27 people
were killed in separate accidents, including eight in a mudslide, as
torrential rains lashed southern Pakistan, ambulance workers said on
Tuesday. [Reuters]
Officials at the flood centre said the flooding should abate in the northern
areas within a few days as rains subsided. But as the water moved south, the
drenched north is fearing water-borne disease.
The mass-circulation Ittefaq said a six year-old boy and an elderly villager
died of diarrhoeal disease in the northwestern Gaibandha district after waters
from flash floods began to recede.
While no official death toll has been provided for Bangladesh as a whole, the
deaths bring the number of reported dead in weather-related incidents this year
to 67, with most killed in landslides in the southeastern hill tracts late last
month.
Bangladesh is criss-crossed by more than 230 rivers, which ravage the country
almost each year. At least 14 of 64 districts have been hit with floods
spreading from the north towards the Bay of Bengal.
In Assam, about 100,000 of the homeless are in the Dhemaji, 460 kilometers
(285 miles) east of the state capital Guwahati, which has been cut off from the
rest of the province since June 12.
"Rows and rows of villages were swept away with people in their thousands
taking shelter in makeshift tarpaulin tents or on higher ground," Dilip Saikia,
a local lawmaker in Dhemaji, told AFP.
Heavy monsoon rains triggered mudslides in many parts of Arunachal Pradesh
state, northeast of here bordering Chinese-ruled Tibet, with road links to
capital Itanagar cut off for the past week, the state's flood control minister
Sonsam Nemu said by telephone.
