South Asian floods kills thousands, affecting millions

South Asia on Brink of `Health Crisis' After Floods

By Ed Johnson

Aug. 8 (Bloomberg) --Millions of villagers hit by monsoon floods across northern India, Bangladesh and Nepal are ``days away from a health crisis,'' as stagnant waters become a breeding ground for disease, the United Nations said.

About 30 million people have lost their homes or livelihoods after monsoon rains and melting Himalayan snow caused rivers to burst their banks, the UN Children's Fund, Unicef, said in a statement yesterday.

Floodwaters ``are a lethal breeding ground for diarrheal and waterborne diseases at potentially epidemic levels,'' Marzio Babille, Unicef's health chief in India, said in the statement, adding malaria and dengue fever are among the threats. ``Children, who make up 40 percent of South Asia's population, are particularly susceptible.''

Monsoon rains between June and September are essential for agriculture in South Asia and cause annual flooding. This year's monsoon rains have been of a ``startling magnitude and intensity'' and caused the region's worst floods in living memory, Unicef said.

Almost 20 million people have been affected in the Indian states of Assam, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, the agency said. Hundreds of thousands of people are camping on highways, railway tracks and rooftops to escape the floods, many without clean drinking water.

Indian Death Toll

The floods have killed 1,428 people in India since the monsoon season began in June, the country's national disaster management agency said yesterday, Agence France-Presse reported.

Sonia Gandhi, president of the ruling Indian National Congress party, and Home Minister Shivraj Patil visited Bihar yesterday where floods have inundated 2.7 million acres (1.1 million hectares) of farmland, AFP said. The state has asked the government for 2 million metric tons of wheat and rice to feed people affected by the floods, the news agency added.

In Bangladesh, a low-lying delta nation, 8 million people have been affected, according to Unicef. Twenty-six rivers are flowing above danger levels and 1.2 million acres of cropland have been damaged. Diarrhea, cholera and skin diseases are spreading.

At least 328 people have died in Bangladesh because of floods and landslides since the monsoon season began, AFP reported, citing the government.

In the past eight days, at least 18,300 people were admitted to hospital with diarrhea, the news agency said, citing health spokesman Aisha Akhter.

Flooding across Nepal has affected more than 300,000 people, mostly in rural areas of the Terai along the southern border with India, Unicef said. Floods, landslides and disease have killed 95 people in the Himalayan kingdom, the agency said yesterday.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is ``deeply saddened by the hundreds of lives lost'' and ``concerned by the economic devastation faced by the survivors,'' his office said in a statement yesterday.