India rushes doctors to flood victims

INDIA: Indian authorities rushed doctors and medical equipment to flood-devastated northern India on Monday in a bid to ward off outbreaks of disease among the hundreds of thousands of victims crowding into relief camps, officials said.

Nearly half of the 1.2 million people who were left homeless when the Kosi River burst its banks, spilling over north India's vast plains two weeks ago, had been rescued by Monday, and officials said they hope to reach the others in the next three days.

About 250,000 refugees were in government and relief agency camps, said Prataya Amrit, a top disaster management official in Bihar state, the scene of the flooding. The rest have taken shelter with family or friends.

A United Nations statement warned that "the heat, combined with limited supplies of safe drinking water and poor hygiene conditions, poses a great risk of water and vector-borne diseases."

In neighboring Bangladesh, flooding has cut off at least 20,000 people, news reports said Sunday as a flood warning agency forecast the situation was "likely to deteriorate."

Saharsa District, Monday,

AP