South Asia flood victims desperate for food and clean water

Terra Daily, via AFP: Many of the millions of people forced from their homes by floods across South Asia were desperate for food and drinking water on Monday as aid workers and army battled to reach them. The flooding, described as the heaviest to hit the region in decades, has affected 31 million people and killed more than 1,600 others in India, Bangladesh and Nepal since monsoon rains began pouring down in June. India's northern Bihar state has been hit hardest by the disaster, and some of the growing number of people marooned by the swirling waters have resorted to fighting for emergency food supplies.

The state's disaster management chief, Manoj Srivastava, put the total number of flood-affected at 11.5 million. More than 6,000 villages were submerged, he told AFP, but added that the waters appeared to be receding. "This has been an unprecedented flood," Srivastava said. "The data shows in Bihar in several districts the rainfall has been 250 to 300 percent higher than the average for the last 30 years."

An estimated two million Biharis are living outdoors, state officials said…

…Bihar's chief minister has blamed Nepal for the flooding and officials say Kathmandu must build more dams to control the flow of waters south. Nepal's foreign ministry hit back, saying overflowing Indian dams on the border have flooded the Himalayan country's low-lying regions.

…Health experts meanwhile warned of the possibility of outbreaks of water-borne diseases. "Receding floodwaters leave behind sludge and debris which become the breeding ground for epidemics," said A.K. Pande, head of the Patna Medical College and Hospital, the largest healthcare facility in Bihar.