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Although the water level in flood-hit Bihar may be receding, the river Kosi has left behind a trail of death, destruction and disease. Ten deaths from diarrhoea have already been reported from Supaul district
Large-scale waterlogging, unhygienic sanitary conditions and unsafe drinking water have created the right climate for diseases to spread in flood-affected regions of Bihar. One of the victims is eight-month-old Manno who has a high fever and has been vomiting for the past two days. Making matters worse is the absence of doctors at many relief camps. Most camps have only a nurse and a compounder to help distraught patients. “The medicines that the compounder gives us are not working and there is no doctor here. I do not have money to take my child anywhere else,” said Manno’s mother Sita Mandal. The nurse at the relief camp said: “I am doing the best I can but there should be a doctor here.” Several such cases are being reported in camp after camp, but the government machinery is still busy with rescue work as the flood situation remains extremely grim in the districts of Purnia, Supaul, Saharsa, Kishanganj, Araria and Forbesganj. Reports say 18 days after the floods hundreds of people are still stuck in water. Rescue boats have been unable to reach all the flood-affected villages and inflated rafts are proving useless against the strong currents of the Kosi. Rescue workers are also battling to persuade villagers reluctant to leave their houses despite repeated pleas by government officials. People fear being drowned in the swollen waters or being robbed by ‘flood bandits’. Incidents of theft, robbery and molestation are being reported in various parts but the police has no records because most of these areas are inaccessible. Officials confirmed that thousands are still stuck in Gosain Tola, Kishanganj, Rahpur Lakshmania and other villages in Madhepura. Also, there is no information about 1,000-odd missing people in Balua Bazaar, Birpur (the site of the barrage) and the Chhattapur areas of Supaul. The government has confirmed the deaths of only 23 people in the floods so far. There are unconfirmed reports of 10 deaths from diarrhoea coming in from Supaul district. An officer of the National Disaster Response Force confirms the worst fears: “The number of dead might be hundreds of times the number of bodies found. Entire villages have vanished. We may never really know how many people died here.” “Villagers begged us to come with them to their villages and rescue people. So we went,” said the officer, who directs boat movements to different parts every morning. “But in several cases, when we reached the village the guide just looked around flabbergasted. He could not find it. It had completely disappeared. There would be a lot of crying and mourning right there.” Anshu Gupta, who heads the voluntary group Goonj and has been travelling to the cut-off villages, said: “As the water is going down, bodies are slowly being found. Many were washed away, but many were stuck or crushed under walls, in bushes or on the railway tracks. The deaths are in the thousands -- or even a lakh.” Meanwhile, the mourners tell their stories in the cramped relief camps. “I saw 150 people die, with my own eyes,” says Hiranand Poddar who is in a relief camp in Purnia town. “I am not exaggerating. People were walking briskly; the water came and just swept them away. They slammed against trees, against electricity poles, wherever the water took them,” he says. Mamata Devi lost everything in the floods: two bulls, four buffaloes, clothing, utensils, grain stock and her house. She was pregnant when floodwaters inundated her village. It took her four days to cross the 25 km stretch of Kosi floodwaters on foot and take shelter at a relief camp in Saharsa town. She delivered a baby girl there on August 30. She wanted to preserve the memory of her horror and christened her newborn baby Kosi. Reports say over 1,000 pregnant women have taken shelter at hundreds of relief camps being run by the state government, the railways, the local community and NGOs. The state government has set up mobile maternity homes in the five worst-hit districts of Bihar and has also opened up 148 health camps. Source: The Hindustan Times, September 8, 2008
The Statesman, September 8, 2008
http://www.patnadaily.com, September 2008
http://www.ibnlive.com, September 2008
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