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India flood survivors plead for those left behind

Aug 31, 2008

BANMANKHI, India (AFP) — Survivors of devastating floods in northeast India
said Sunday the rescue operation was failing, accusing the government of
abandoning those still stranded in remote villages.

At a makeshift relief camp in the state of Bihar, flood survivors pleaded
with officials to send help to relatives they said were marooned on rooftops or
in the few areas still above water.

"I left my village 12 days ago when the waters first started to rise. I went
out to find food for the cattle and ended up at this camp," said Shivnath Yadav,
70, as tears welled in his eyes.

"I haven't seen my family since. I want to get them out but no boats are
going there. I don't know what they are eating, or what they are drinking.

"We need the rescue operation to find our families now. But there are not
enough boats."

About 76 people have died since the monsoon-swollen Kosi river breached its
banks two weeks ago on India's border with Nepal and changed course, swamping
hundreds of villages in impoverished Bihar state.

More than 400,000 people have been evacuated in an operation involving local
authorities, emergency workers and the army, disaster management official
Pratyaya Amrit told AFP on Sunday.

Another 800,000 people have made their own way out and sought shelter in
overcrowded relief centres set up by the government or in concrete buildings and
temples, officials in Bihar said, but at least one million remain stranded.

Shrawan Baitha, 28, last spoke to his wife by mobile phone on Saturday, when
she told him she was stuck with other family members on their roof in Ratanpatti
village, just a few kilometres from the relief camp here.

His wife told him their pregnant niece was experiencing labour pains, but he
had been unable to get through on the telephone since.

"They said the water had completely surrounded them," said Baitha, who added
that he has run from one local official to another begging for boats to be sent
there before it was too late.

"Not one person from Ratanpatti has made it to this camp," he said.

Baitha said 14,000 people live in his village, and he prayed many had escaped
soon after the floods began.

State disaster minister Nitish Mishra said his office was facing an uphill
battle, with a vast area to cover and few resources.

"The problem is that the area is huge and more than 1,000 villages are in the
water," Mishra told AFP. "We need more boats."

A UNICEF emergency specialist warned of the risk of disease and predicted it
would take time for the flood waters to drain away.

"There is overcrowding in the shelters, so we need to go in and to vaccinate
quickly," said Mukesh Puri. "The water may not recede for three months."

In Nepal, more than 50,000 people have also been displaced.

Durga Bhandari, a top official in Sunsari district bordering India, said a
growing bilateral dispute over the failure to contain the Kosi was a distraction
from the race to save lives.

"Nepalese and Indian authorities are working to protect the volatile areas in
order to avoid flooding in more villages," he said.

"Hundreds of labourers have been mobilised and are dropping sand bags to stop
further erosion and inundation.

"As the river washed away the banks and changed its course, more water has
flowed into Indian territory. This is not the time to start a blame game. We are
focused on curbing the floods and providing rescue and relief."

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