July 12, 2004
Millions left homeless in South Asian floods
The Guardian (UK)

Millions of people were left homeless and dozens killed as a burst dam in the remote mountainous kingdom of Bhutan added to the annual monsoon flooding in south Asia from swollen Himalayan rivers, affecting large areas in eastern India, Nepal and Bangladesh.

Maseeh Rahman in New Delhi
Monday July 12, 2004
The Guardian

Millions of people were left homeless and dozens killed as a burst dam in the remote mountainous kingdom of Bhutan added to the annual monsoon flooding in south Asia from swollen Himalayan rivers, affecting large areas in eastern India, Nepal and Bangladesh.
The worst-affected region was the tea-growing state of Assam, where the army used helicopters to rescue people as thousands of homes on an island in the Brahmaputra river were submerged after the hydro-power dam on Tsatistu lake in Bhutan was breached.

Television channels showed people from the flooded 800 sq km (310 sq-mile) Majuli Island - said to be the largest river island in the world - taking shelter under makeshift tarpaulin tents on the muddy embankments.

Nearly two-thirds of Majuli's 150,000 residents had been badly affected, the deputy inspector general of police, Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta, told Reuters.

Mr Mahanta said the rising Brahmaputra was also threatening 20 monasteries established by a 17th-century Hindu philosopher and saint, Sri Sankardeva.

But almost all of Assam's rivers were flooded due to the torrential rains and the state's chief minister, Tarun Gogoi, said more than 2 million people had become homeless. At least 40 people, including children, died on Saturday night when the wooden boat in which they were trying to reach higher ground capsized in the swirling waters.

Downriver in neighbouring Bangladesh, around 13 people were dead and an estimated 3 million have been marooned in their homes in flooded villages.

Villagers were stranded on the roofs of their submerged homes, while others were liv ing in boats. Submerged wells have forced residents to drink floodwater, exposing them to diseases, officials said.

The north-eastern town of Sylhet, at the centre of the worst-hit region, lay under 60cm (2ft) of water, and road and rail links had been cut. There were fears that even the capital, Dhaka, could be affected as more rain was forecast.

The floods have already hit a third of the country's 64 administrative districts. "We have enough relief goods, but it is difficult to reach people in remote villages due to a shortage of boats," an official said.

The situation was equally bad in Nepal, where at least 12 people were dead in floods and landslides triggered by the monsoon's battering.

"People are sitting on rooftops or have climbed trees as floodwaters have entered their homes in the southern plains," a Nepalese government official told the Associated Press.

India's Bihar state, bordering Nepal, was also badly hit, with 11 people drowned or buried in the debris of their collapsing homes in just one district.

As floodwaters surged across a swath of south Asia, drowning was not the only threat facing villagers.

Waterborne diseases are said to have already claimed several lives in Bihar, one of the poorest states in India, where the monsoon has caused havoc for several days.

In Bangladesh, two children have died after they were bitten by snakes floating in the floodwaters, a news agency reported.

But in a repeat of another annual problem, while the monsoon was taking its toll in the eastern part of the subcontinent, rainfall was less than normal in the north-western and central Indian states, raising concern about the fate of important crops such as rice and oilseeds.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. GlobalIssues.Net distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107.