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PATNA, India: India was racing at the weekend to rescue hold-outs reluctant to leave their marooned villages in the flood-hit north while also grappling with the huge task of feeding and housing close to a million displaced villagers.
Some 900,000 people have waded from their homes or been evacuated on rescue boats in Bihar state since August 18, when the Kosi river breached defences upstream in Nepal, shifting away from its normal course and east onto farmland.
In Nepal, 60,000 people have been made homeless, with anywhere up to five million affected in India, aid agencies say.
An area the size of Hong Kong now lies underwater in eastern India, and at least 100,000 people are marooned on rooftops and tiny strips of dry land in the worst-hit areas just south of Nepal, officials say.
Some aid workers have praised the Bihar state government for raising the alarm on the need to urgently evacuate tens of thousands soon after the river turned east.
Officials also quickly turned every available building - schools, temples, student housing - into temporary shelters.
Private organisations too have pitched in, setting up soup kitchens on roads and feeding as many as they can.
And yet, as thousands of destitute villagers squat on roads after getting off the rescue boats, and mothers hold babies that they say fell sick after drinking muddy flood waters, it is clear many are not getting the help they need.
"Private people are helping us, but the government is not helping us," said Mithilesh Yadav, 30, who left his village on a rescue boat with his wife and five children Wednesday.
"The schools, the camps, everything is full. We have put up these huts ourselves. We have to live somehow."
The Indian media has been harshly critical of relief efforts by the government and international aid agencies.
One major daily national daily, the Hindustan Times, ran a photograph of children with their hands outstretched for food with the headline "India's Shame."
Aid agencies said everyone - including the government - was working overtime to take care of those displaced by the flooding, but admitted there were still many awaiting rescue, shelter and healthcare.
"The government machinery and everyone have been moving around the clock," said Aditi Kapur, a spokeswoman for British aid group Oxfam, which has workers in the badly-affected Supaul area.
"At the same time there are still people in remote areas who are waiting for relief. Shelters are cramped and unhygienic. There are pregnant and lactating women who need safe drinking water. These things are not there."
With India and Nepal still trading accusations on who is to blame for the failure of the flood walls, it is unclear when the two will begin work on repairing the breach - or complete it.
That means India will have to provide for at least a million people for the next several months.
The government is also still cajoling hold-outs to leave their villages, even as some in camps have tried to return home as the water ebbed.
"For us the evacuation part is over," state disaster official Pratyaya Amrit told AFP at the weekend.
"We have reached a stage where people in the thousands are still left, but they are now refusing to come out."
But he added that rescue boats would still go out to plead with people to abandon their villages.
With a month to go before the end of India's often deadly June-to-September monsoon season, when much of the country gets most of its rain, officials warn the danger is far from over.
"People think the flood is over. In the last two to three days, at least 10,000 to 15,000 have gone back," said Amrit.
"We have another 25 days to go. What if the levels go up again?"
- AFP/yb
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