| |
| |
 |
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
NEW DELHI : The death toll climbed Friday as dozens more people perished in torrents of monsoon rains that have marooned some 20 million in northern India, Bangladesh and Nepal, officials said.
In India alone the number of dead topped 1,000 with new victims reported from the states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Assam where 25 of 27 districts are inundated.
There were 21 deaths overnight in three eastern districts hardest hit by the heavy flooding, Uttar Pradesh relief commissioner Umesh Sinha told AFP.
"An estimated 20 million people are believed to be affected in all three countries in what is being described as the worst flooding in living memory," the United Nations' children's fund UNICEF said in a statement.
"The sheer size and scale of the flooding and the massive numbers of people affected poses an unprecedented challenge to the delivery of desperately needed humanitarian assistance," it said.
A total of 1,028 people have died in India in the annual downpour that begins in June and lasts until September, according to officials and media reports.
"The situation is under control now," Sinha said after announcing 1,650 paramilitary and army personnel had been deployed along with civilian rescue teams to help some 1.4 million flood-hit people.
Many rivers were in spate, breaching embankments and dykes, he added.
The weather office in Lucknow, capital of Uttar Pradesh state, forecast "heavy to very heavy rains expected in the next 24 hours".
The monsoon regularly brings flooding to South Asia but this year has seen some of the worst in recent times with the north and east particularly hard hit.
In neighbouring Bihar state, chief minister Nitish Kumar described the flood situation as "grim" with more than seven million people cut off by overflowing rivers.
"It's not possible to reach all the people by boat. The only alternative is airdropping relief material," Kumar said of the state's worst-hit Darbhanga district.
"Sixteen of the state's 38 districts are under water. That means some 3,614 villages are affected," A.K Chowdhury, Bihar chief secretary told AFP by phone.
Flooding has destroyed crops planted over 630,000 hectares (1.6 million acres) and early estimates suggest losses of 450 million rupees (US$11 million) in the state, he said.
"The flood situation is very very serious, the situation we have now is unprecedented in the past 30 years," Chowdhury said.
Further east in Bangladesh, authorities reported another 11 deaths taking the annual monsoon toll to 191.
Disaster management minister Tapan Chowdhury said thousands of army and civilian personnel had been mobilised.
Around 6.9 million Bangladeshis were either displaced or marooned in villages, he said, adding that of those an estimated 200,000 had taken refuge in government shelters.
"We are distributing dried food to people by boat but in some places we cannot reach people because of lack of boats so we are making rafts by cutting banana trees," said district relief officer Abul Khaer in northern Sirajganj district.
Nepal has also been badly hit and the death toll rose Friday to 87, the home ministry said.
Some 32 of the Himalayan nation's 75 districts have been affected.
Biratnagar, a border town close to India, reported 223 millimetres (8.8 inches) of rain in the last 24 hours.
Meanwhile, further downstream in eastern West Bengal state and northeastern Assam where 5.5 million people have been hit, matters were improving, a government spokesman said.
"The situation is on the mend," Bhumidhar Barman, Assam's relief minister, told AFP. "We have had no rains in the past 48 hours."
A Central Water Commission bulletin said water-levels in all the major rivers and their tributaries were receding.
"Some people have already started leaving the 3,500 relief camps and are going back to their villages although a vast majority of the 5.5 million people affected are unable to return as their homes are filled with mud," Barman said. - AFP/ch
|
