India Uses Private Boats to Reach 700,000 Flood Victims
he government commandeered private boats on Sunday in a desperate effort to reach hundreds of thousands of people trapped after a monsoon-swollen river burst its banks and spilled over the vast plains of northern India.
Authorities say the breach in the banks of the Kosi River is more than a mile long and growing every day, and cannot be repaired until late November, when the monsoon rains end.
The plains of northern India have become a massive lake, with only an occasional tree or rooftop breaking the surface. The government says it has not yet been able to fully assess the devastation.
"We will only be able to tell the extent after the water recedes," said Prataya Amrit, secretary of Bihar's disaster management department. "But it is colossal."
Nearly 700,000 people have been marooned and an estimated 3 million affected in five districts of Bihar.
Authorities have evacuated 475,000 people and put nearly 170,000 in state-run relief camps, said Amrit.
"The government has taken over all boats in the area," said Ravindra Prasad Singh, a state government official coordinating rescue work in Supaul district, where 10,000 people have been evacuated.
Singh said he has 41 boats at his disposal and 50 soldiers have joined the rescue operation in Supaul.
"The situation is definitely bad, but now the army has joined in and rescue operations will be speeded up," he said.
Trucks laden with various kinds of boats were making their way to the area.
"People have been trapped for days living on the roofs of the concrete buildings in the villages, while mud and thatch huts were swept away," said Lakshmi Devi as she got out of a boat with her husband and two small crying children at a bridge in Triveniganj, the only dry land and link to flooded areas in Supaul, about 875 miles northeast of New Delhi.
Anxious people rushed toward arriving boats, looking for separated relatives.
Those able to flee piled their families, goats, chickens and sacks of grain into boats and headed for safety. Some waded for miles through the floodwaters, carrying bundles of belongings on their heads.
But as the waters rapidly inundated more than 750 villages and towns, many were unable to escape. Nineteen people drowned Friday when their rescue boat capsized.
An army officer who was believed to have died in the accident was found alive three days later clinging to a tree, Amrit said.
In northern Bangladesh, monsoon flooding has cut off at least 20,000 people, news reports said Sunday as a flood warning agency forecast the situation is "likely to deteriorate."
The monsoon season, which lasts from June to September, brings rain vital for the farmers of Bangladesh and India but also can cause massive destruction.
8/31/2008 9:34 AM
By GAVIN RABINOWITZ
Associated Press Writer
TRIVENIGANJ, India
People wade through a flooded National high way in Puthimari village about 45 kilometers (28 Miles) west of Gauhati, India, Sunday, Aug. 31, 2008. The Puthimari river in lower Assam breached four embankments Saturday night at inundating 50 villages.
(AP Photo/ Anupam Nath)
he government commandeered private boats on Sunday in a desperate effort to reach hundreds of thousands of people trapped after a monsoon-swollen river burst its banks and spilled over the vast plains of northern India.
