INDIA:VICTIMS OF the devastating floods in India's eastern Bihar state that have rendered over 2.6 million people homeless yesterday blamed the authorities for providing inadequate relief and of abandoning those marooned for days in remote villages.
Desperate villagers hijacked rescue vessels, looted food, water and other essentials and some even abandoned their children in a bid to survive Bihar's worst-ever floods in 50 years.
Around 800,000 people had somehow made their own way out from inundated villages and sought shelter in overcrowded, government-run relief centres or in concrete buildings and temples, officials said, but over one million were still stranded.
Distressed provincial authorities, unable to cope with the disaster called in the army, its engineering corps and medical personnel to join in the rescue operations as aid agencies warned of the outbreak of infectious diseases like diarrhoea amongst some 475,000 evacuees in around 170,000 rudimentary relief camps.
The army columns were backed by naval divers trained in flood water rescue and air force helicopters to drop badly-needed food and water to stranded villagers and to evacuate the marooned.
But reports from the flooded regions said military personnel too faced logistical problems as local government officials were not around to guide or help them out. Television pictures showed people perched in trees and on rooftops of concrete buildings, frantically shouting and waving at passing boatmen and air force helicopters to rescue them.
The flooding occurred after the Kosi river flowing southwards into Bihar from neighbouring Nepalchanged course by several miles, after almost two centuries, swamping over 1,000 heavily populated villages.
In Nepal, officials said repairing the breached dam was under way but turning the river back to its original course would take time by building embankments with India's help.
Meanwhile, Bihar's disaster minister Nitish Mishra said his department faced 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 under water. We need more boats," Mishra said.
A UNICEF 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," Mukesh Puri said. The water he warned may not recede for three months.