Help pledged for flood victims in India's Bihar

Lily

B.R
Staff member
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Patna: After two successive years of drought, floods have wreaked havoc in large parts of Bihar this year, killing 109 people and displacing a population of 2.4 million in 22 out of state's total 38 districts so far, according to an official report.

In view of the severe flood situation in the state, the state government has sounded an alert across the state and cancelled the leaves of all engineers till October 15.

The overall flood situation further turned grim yesterday when local rivers swelled by flood waters breached their mud embankments at more than a dozen places, inundating more than 200 villages in the north Bihar and disrupting communication and transportation links.

Authorities said the floods caused by breaches in embankments of swollen rivers have inundated villages in Muzaffarpur, Sitamarhi, Samastipur, Madhubani and Darbhanga districts, forcing the villagers to flee to safety.

"There is nothing to panic [about] as our team of engineers are working overtime to plug the breaches by putting sand bags there," a senior state government official S.M. Raju told Gulf News by phone yesterday. The official said he was rushing relief to the flood victims who had taken shelters along the embankments along with cattle.

Relief

Alarmed at the gravity of the situation, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday flew over the flood-hit area with a team of state government officials.

After surveying the damage Kumar directed the launching of emergency relief measures. "We are with the flood victims and will provide them with maximum possible relief," the chief minister told reporters after his aerial survey.

He said he had asked the officials to take steps to tackle diseases in the flood-hit areas.

Authorities say they have evacuated 68,000 people so far and deployed 2,512 boats to evacuate more people trapped in floodwaters.

The government has also set up 238 health camps to provide medical care to victims in shelters at relief centres and temporary camps.

According to the report, apart from damaging houses and destroying crops. Authorities say the damage is extensive. According to the report, the floods have destroyed standing crops in 114,000 hectares of land and damaged more than 15,000 houses and other public properties.
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