Flood-ravaged Bihar faces disease outbreak

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<TABLE class=RedTableBorder style="HEIGHT: 483px" cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR style="PADDING-LEFT: 10px" vAlign=top><TD class=articalTitle align=middle>Flood-ravaged Bihar faces disease outbreak <TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=430 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=dates id=hDate height=27> Wednesday, 3 September, 2008, 09:12 AM Doha Time</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR><TR style="PADDING-RIGHT: 12px; PADDING-LEFT: 10px"><TD class=articalBody id=artical1 vAlign=top height=345><TABLE width=10 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD align=middle></TD></TR><TR><TD class=imgcaption id=Comment dir=rtl vAlign=top align=middle>A girl holds a goat as she makes her way through floodwaters at Chandpura village of Madhepura district in Bihar. Huge swathes of the state are under water after a major river breached flood defences in neighbouring Nepal, changing course and washing away villages, crops, livestock and people</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>SAHARSA: Hundreds of thousands of flood victims huddled into makeshift camps in India face major disease outbreaks if help fails to reach them quickly, aid workers warned yesterday.
They said several camps in Bihar and across the border in Nepal, areas devastated when a monsoon-swollen river burst its banks and changed course, were already reporting cases of diarrhoea and other crippling illnesses.
A large part of Bihar is under water, with 550,000 people displaced and a further 400,000 people still awaiting rescue, state officials said. According to the UN?s World Health Organisation, 3mn people have been affected in some way.
?After two to four days, because of the stagnant water, more people will get sick. There will be more illnesses,? government health worker Jai Krishna Sah said at a crowded relief camp in Saharsa district, 150km east of state capital Patna.
In many areas, wells have been inundated with floodwaters carrying silt, sewage, bodies and refuse.
?The important thing now is for there to be some camp management, where the people have access to latrines, clean drinking water and some basic health care,? said European Commission humanitarian aid representative Malini Morzaria.
One flood survivor, Sunita Yadav, was carrying a bucket of muddy water that she said she was going to use to make porridge.
?Sometimes I am using this water to cook with or drink. What are we to do?? she said.
The relief operation in Bihar is proving slow going ? and dangerous.
Most people reaching safety are traumatised by the loss of their homes, crops or loved ones, and carry few or no possessions.
At least 15 people drowned overnight in two separate accidents involving overcrowded rescue boats taking part in the effort to ferry stranded villagers to safety, Bihar state disaster official Pratyay Amrit said.
The dead included many children who were washed away by the strong currents still gushing through Supaul and Madhepura districts, two of the worst-hit areas.
?These were areas that rescue teams had been struggling to reach and evacuate people,? Amrit said.
Lieutenant-General H S Panag, the army official co-ordinating relief work, said the floods were ?the biggest national calamity in recent times.?
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar also suggested the humanitarian crisis was likely to be extremely serious for several weeks.
?The possibility of water receding is minimum until next month,? he told reporters.
Television images showed desperate villagers driving their livestock into the Kosi river because they had no food for them.
Aid agencies have criticised the government?s handling of the crisis saying they should have done more to anticipate the disaster and plan relief operations since the region is hit by monsoon flooding every year.
Local media reported that the first train carrying Bihar flood victims reached New Delhi on Monday, complaining of having received little or no government help.
The northern and northeastern states of Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Assam have also been badly hit by monsoon floods.
In Assam, heavy rains caused water levels to rise yesterday, affecting more than a million people and disrupting road networks for the second consecutive day.
Animals fled to higher ground in Kaziranga National Park after the Brahmaputra burst its banks and flooded most of the park, home to more than half of the world?s population of one-horned rhinoceros.
At least two rhino calves drowned and a herd of 100 elephants were swept away by floodwaters, forest officials said. ? Agencies http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topic...0&parent_id=22
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Re: Flood-ravaged Bihar faces disease outbreak

After flood fury, the living fight diseases
AFP
Wednesday, September 03, 2008 04:10 IST


Aid workers warn of epidemic threat from stagnant water
- 15 killed as two overcrowded rescue boats capsize
SAHARSA: Hundreds of thousands of flood victims huddled into makeshift camps in Bihar face major disease outbreaks if help fails to reach them quickly, aid workers warned on Tuesday. They said several relief camps were already reporting cases of
diarrhoea and other crippling illnesses.

A large part of Bihar is under water, with 550,000 people displaced and a further 400,000 people still awaiting rescue, state officials said.

"After two to four days, because of the stagnant water, more people will get sick. There will be more illnesses," government health worker Jai Krishna Sah said at a crowded camp in Saharsa district, 150 km east of state capital Patna.

In many areas, the wells have been inundated with flood waters containing sewage, bodies and refuse.

"The important thing now is for there to be some camp management, where the people have access to latrines, clean drinking water and some basic health care," said European Commission humanitarian aid representative Malini Morzaria.

One flood survivor, Sunita Yadav, was carrying a bucket of muddy water that she said she was going to use to make porridge. "Sometimes I use this water to cook with or drink. What are we to do?"

The relief operation in Bihar, however, is proving slow going ? and dangerous. Most people reaching safety are traumatised by the loss of their homes, crops or loved ones, and carry few or no possessions.

At least 15 people drowned overnight in two separate accidents involving overcrowded rescue boats taking part in the effort to ferry stranded villagers to safety, Bihar state disaster official Pratyay Amrit said.

The dead included many children who were washed away by the strong currents still gushing through Supaul and Madhepura districts, two of the worst-hit areas. "These were areas that rescue teams had been struggling to reach and evacuate people,"
Amrit said.

At least 100 people have been confirmed dead since the Kosi river overwhelmed decrepit flood defences in Nepal and shifted course two weeks ago.

The real toll is believed to be far higher as many people were simply washed away by strong currents.

Lieutenant-General HS Panag, the Indian army official coordinating relief work, said the floods were "the biggest national calamity in recent times".

Chief minister Nitish Kumar also suggested the humanitarian crisis was likely to be extremely serious for several weeks. "The possibility of water receding is minimum until next month," he told reporters.

The northern and northeastern states of Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Assam have also been badly hit by monsoon floods. http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?n...87483&pageid=0

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Re: Flood-ravaged Bihar faces disease outbreak



Monsoon rains regularly swell rivers in northern India, but in 2008, the Kosi, a tributary of the Ganges and a major river in its own right, did something different. It burst through its banks to flow into a channel it had abandoned more than 200 years ago, reported the Times of India. The flooded channel swept over a region not accustomed to flooding and forced more than a million people from their homes. The flood is clearly visible in these images, collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA?s Terra satellite on August 24 (top) and August 8 (bottom).

On August 8, the braided channels of the Kosi River curved westward out of Nepal in a ?c? shape before flowing into the Ganges (below the lower edge of the image, visible in the large image). On August 24, the Kosi cut due south, bypassing the previous arc formed by the river?s modern channel. The flooded channel was kilometers wide in places. Water still flowed through the modern channel on August 24, but the river seemed smaller than it had two weeks earlier.
Full article:

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=18132