wfn.org | Worst floods in India leave millions homeless

[franki@elca.org]

GENEVA, 29 September 2000 (LWI) - As the death toll mounts in the worst flooding in India and Bangladesh in recent years, the field program offices of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) say food, medicine and shelter are desperately needed. 

Lutheran World Service (LWS)-India reports the severe overflow of riverbanks and dams following heavy monsoon rains on September 18, have divided the eastern state of West Bengal into two, with the northern and southern parts cut off from each other. In India alone at least 400 people have reportedly died as result of the disaster and another 15 million have been rendered homeless.

With the available resources, LWS-India has begun intervention in selected communities, where extensive damage was incurred. It is expected that at least 10,000 families can receive immediate assistance. The LWF program aims at providing food, clothes, blankets, building materials and seeds and fertilizers. The first response from LWS India to the floods is medical care to the victims in order to minimize the spread of water-borne diseases. 

According to LWS-India, the waters have swept away roads and railway tracks. Whole villages and huge areas of farmland have been washed away and thousands of livestock are believed to have died.

The LWS-India emergency relief team started moving into the affected areas when it became possible. Mushidabad district in the northern part of the state is the worst hit with some 5.6 million people affected by waters reaching a level of four meters. Reports from the accessible areas of the district indicate that about 46,000 houses were totally destroyed and many parts still remain inaccessible. 

Army helicopters are dropping food parcels to millions of marooned villagers. Elsewhere soldiers use boats to rescue stranded victims and relief camps have been set up. Officials were quoted by newspapers as saying cases of intestinal disease have already been reported from some of the camps. 

Earlier in August when five million people were affected by floods in the states of Assam, Bihar and West Bengal, the Geneva-based Action by Churches Together (ACT), a worldwide network of churches and agencies responding to human need through coordinated emergency response, issued an Appeal for assistance to flood victims in India. LWS, an ACT member, reports that in Assam and Bihar people are going back in small numbers to their villages. "They are returning to collapsed houses, silted fields and damaged crops. Whether in relief camps on the embankments or back home, they face the same set of problems. No shelter, no safe water and of course crisis of food," the report says.

LWS-India reported in August that unprecedented silting had occurred during the recent floods in the state of Assam. "Several thousand hectares of croplands have been rendered useless by thick deposits of silt and slush. In some areas several feet of silt have been deposited over the land. The report added that the huge amount of silt in the riverbeds diverted the course of swollen rivers, which inundated entire villages.

 (Edited from an article by Rainer Lang, ACT, Geneva)
 -Photos available

(The LWF is a global communion of 131 member churches in 72 countries representing over 59 million of the world's 63 million Lutherans. Its highest decision making body is the Assembly, held every six or seven years. Between Assemblies, the LWF is governed by a 49-member Council which meets annually, and its Executive Committee. The LWF secretariat is located in Geneva, Switzerland.)

[Lutheran World Information (LWI) is the information service of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF). Unless specifically noted, material presented does not represent positions or opinions of the LWF or of its various units. Where the dateline of an article contains the notation (LWI), the material may be freely reproduced with acknowledgment.]

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