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| Monday, 19 July 2004 |
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S.Asia's flood victims protest over poor aid PATNA/DHAKA, Sunday (Reuters) Hungry and angry flood victims protested over delays in aid in India and Nepal as the death toll from weeks of monsoon flooding in South Asia crossed 350 on Saturday. Authorities warned the situation could worsen in central Bangladesh, where the river Padma continued to swell while relentless overnight rains caused more landslides in Nepal. The subcontinent's worst floods in 15 years caused a crisis in relief efforts as angry villagers marooned in remote areas of India's eastern state of Bihar blamed officials for being slow to deliver aid. Farther away, in Japan and Korea, torrential rains have claimed 20 lives in the past week. China, too, is grappling with angry rainstorms that have forced people to leave their homes. In Bangladesh, victims asked for drinking water amid swirling waters, while people in parts of Nepal took part in rallies accusing relief officials of supplying poor quality rice. "There is a short supply of food and medicines in flood-affected areas and people are starving," said a Nepali who asked not to be identified. Six people died in Bihar, taking to 107 the death toll in the state of about 83 million people, while about a dozen died of water-borne diseases in Nepal. About 12 million people in Bangladesh, India and Nepal have been hit by torrential rains and more than eight million left marooned or homeless by floods that are the region's worst in 15 years, the United Nations says. Media said angry villagers raided grain warehouses of the state-owned Food Corporation of India in Madhubani district on Friday, and a senior civil servant was held captive for a while by victims complaining of a snarl-up in aid distribution. Bihar's relief minister, Ram Vichar Rai, said the state deployed more than 2,500 boats to join army efforts to rescue people after 280,000 thatched huts collapsed. Standing crops worth 150 million rupees ($3.2 million) have been destroyed. "We still have not been able to open up relief centres and health camps in 16 flood-hit districts because the water levels are high," Rai told reporters. India's federal railway minister, Lalu Prasad Yadav, joined his wife Rabri Devi, the chief minister of Bihar, to promise free grain for flood victims until the next cropping season. Indian Air Force officials said ten helicopters had dropped more than 240 tonnes of food packets and rescued more than 340 people including 60 women students of a medical school. In Bangladesh, the death toll rose by 14 to 124, including 50 people missing since Wednesday and presumed dead. |
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