India floods a 'calamity', says premier

Posted 08 29 2008 8:57AM

SAHARSA, India (AFP) - Massive flooding in eastern India has caused a "national calamity," the prime minister said Thursday after touring the devastated region where more than a million people remain trapped.

Manmohan Singh announced a relief package of 228 million dollars and 125,000 tonnes of grain for those affected when a monsoon-swollen river changed course, flooding huge swathes of the country's impoverished Bihar state.

"If there is a need for more, we will give more," he told reporters. "We would like to assure the people of Bihar that all India will support them through this difficulty."

The Kosi river breached its banks ten days ago on the border with Nepal, flowing through a channel it had previously abandoned.

Brahmdeo Yadav's village in badly-hit Saharsa district was reduced to an island surrounded by murky water.

"We have nothing to cook with so we are soaking grain into this filth and trying to survive," Yadav, a farmer, told an AFP correspondent.

The district's tiny rail station was packed Thursday with thousands of flood victims desperate to get on one of the few passenger trains still operating.

"We just want to get out. We want to leave this curse behind," wept Girija Prasad, a housewife whose husband, Narayan, went missing when she was plucked out of the waters by a military motorboat on Wednesday.

More than 400 boats had been pressed into service and hundreds more would be used to shift people to relief shelters and higher ground, officials said.

"About 90,000 victims have been evacuated from villages in the flood affected area by government rescue agencies," disaster management official Prataya Amrit told AFP.

At least 46 people are reported to have died in the floods, as troops and air force helicopters rushed to help police in the rescue operation.

The federal government also promised tents and helicopters to speed up the military-backed evacuation.

Nepalese disaster management officials told AFP the river had washed away a series of dams and spurs, which control the water flow, sending huge torrents downstream that washed away further flood defences.

Authorities on both sides of the border have been in dispute over maintenance of flood control structures and uncleared silt, officials said.

In Nepal, around 50,000 people have been displaced by the floods and have sheltered in schools and makeshift camps, said local authorities.

"All infrastructure is pretty much gone. The telephone system, water supply, public buildings, roads and government offices have all been destroyed," said Suman Ghimire from Nepal's natural disaster committee.

Around five kilometres (three miles) of the main highway on the Nepali side of the border has also been washed away, he added.

Nepali engineers were frantically trying to strengthen flood control barriers upstream to prevent increased water flow as more rain was forecast.

The Kosi, which flows into the Ganges, is known as the "River of Sorrow" due to its record of disastrous floods during the monsoon season.

More than 800 people have been killed in monsoon-related accidents following the heavy June-to-September rains across India.

Bihar officials said the death toll could climb further as many areas were inaccessible.