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28 March 2024

India's monsoon mayhem: Death toll 120 in floods

A man ferries his boat after retrieving floating watermelons from the flooded waters of river Yamuna in New Delhi June 18, 2013. The rains are at least twice as heavy as usual in northwest and central India as the June-September monsoon spreads north, covering the whole country a month faster than normal. (REUTERS)

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By Agencies

Military helicopters carried out emergency food drops Wednesday for thousands of people stranded by flash flooding from early monsoon rains which have killed at least 120 in northern India, officials said.

The states of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh have witnessed torrential rains at least three times as heavy as usual since last week when the annual monsoon broke a fortnight ahead of schedule.

Thousands of houses have been swept away in the flash floods and authorities are using helicopters to evacuate people and drop essential food supplies.

"At least 110 people have died. The state government and the army are trying to rescue thousands of tourists who are stranded near the submerged valleys and Hindu shrines," said Jaspal Arya, the disaster relief minister of Uttarakhand.

Arya said portions of a Hindu temple were washed away on Tuesday and about 10,000 pilgrims were stranded.

"The Kedarnath temple is submerged in mud and slush. We just hope that it does not collapse," Arya told AFP.

Authorities have cancelled pilgrimage trips, fearing further rains and landslides in the state, often referred to as the "Land of the Gods" because of its many Hindu temples and Hindu religious sites.


Officials in Uttarakhand, the worst-hit state, said about 200 cars, two earthmoving equipment and even a parked helicopter had been swept away by floods.

The torrential rains began lashing the region on Saturday and local officials said 40 relief camps have been set up to provide food and water to locals and tourists.

On Tuesday, 250 people were rescued by air force helicopters from different parts of the state and many were moved to the relief camps.

"But many are still stuck and it could take us three more days to rescue all of them, Arya added.

According to Uttarakhand chief secretary Subash Kumar 21 bridges have collapsed in the state. "We have lost access to several villages across the state."

In neighbouring Himachal Pradesh, flash floods destroyed more than 500 houses and government buildings and at least 10 people were killed in landslides.

A military statement on Tuesday said five air bases in northern India had been activated to speed up operations.

The monsoon, which India's farming sector depends on, covers the subcontinent from June to September, usually bringing some flooding.

But the heavy rains arrived early this year, catching many by surprise and exposing the country's lack of preparedness.

 

12 killed in Nepal landslides

At least 12 people have been killed in landslides triggered by three days of heavy monsoon rain in remote parts of Nepal, officials said Tuesday.

Seven members of the same family, including five children, were killed Monday after a landslide buried their house in a village in northwestern Nepal, a local police officer told AFP.

"Part of a hillside above Malika village broke away and smashed into the house below, killing all the family members," the officer, Prakash Gharti Magar, said.


In Baitadi district in the country's west, five people were killed on Tuesday morning after a landslide also buried their homes, a local police officer said.

"Their houses were in a gorge in the remote Siddheswar village. Two women, a 12-year-old boy and two toddlers were killed by the landslide," local police inspector Manoj Kumar Shahi said.

Hundreds of people die every year from flooding and landslides during the monsoon season in Nepal.

GALLERY: Delhi airport flooded, passengers wade through

The annual monsoon has also struck early over the border in India, with flash floods washing away homes and roads, leaving at least 60 people feared dead.

 

Encephalitis season arrives in northern India with fears 2013 will be the deadliest in years

A mosquito-borne disease that preys on the young and malnourished is sweeping across poverty-riven northern India again this monsoon season, with officials worried it could be the deadliest outbreak in nearly a decade.

Encephalitis has already killed at least 118 children this year, and authorities fear the death toll could reach about 1,000, said Dr RN Singh of the Encephalitis Eradication Movement, an Indian nonprofit.

While India's efforts against polio and tuberculosis get plenty of attention, the poor farmers and day laborers of eastern Uttar Pradesh state face an almost-silent emergency, battling a disease that has killed thousands of children over the past eight years.

Many families have taken out crushing loans for treatment. The children who survive often cannot communicate because of brain damage. They stare off listlessly, unable to recognize friends they played with just months before. Some are so severely disabled that their impoverished parents are told to abandon them.



Sangita Devi's 4-year-old son Anup Kumar has been in a hospital for four months.

"We have mortgaged our house for our son's treatment. But there is no improvement in his condition. He cannot even stand now," she said.

The disease is predictable and preventable. Every year the monsoon fills the region's parched paddy fields, heralding the arrival of the mosquitoes that spread Japanese encephalitis from pigs to humans, devastating malnourished children with low immunity. Another strain of the disease — Acute Encephalitis Syndrome — spreads through contaminated water. Residents use the fields for defecation, contaminating the ground water.

A vaccine has long been available, but the state government — which spent tens of millions of dollars building monuments to its last top politician — has failed to muster the sustained political will to focus on the communities hardest hit by the illness.

The disease killed more than 1,500 children in 2005.

Shocked by the deaths, Uttar Pradesh's highest court in 2006 asked the state and federal governments to declare encephalitis a national health emergency. "A concrete action plan must be drawn," it said.

Click to see more images of floods


That year the government started vaccinating children against Japanese encephalitis. The government vowed to immunize every child in the worst-affected areas and to launch a massive drive to improve sanitation. For a couple of years, the numbers dropped. In 2006, the disease killed 431 children.

But the crowded hospital wards of the tiny town of Gorakhpur reflect how the immunization drive has fizzled out. Last year, more than 700 children died.

Amid the cloying smells of ether and disinfectant, 7-year-old Amit jostled his mother. His words were slurred and, every time he tried to break free of her grip, he fell to the floor. She kissed his dry and dirty cheek.

"He cannot stand on his own any more. He cannot speak. Cannot say whether he wants food or water. He has no control over his bladder," said his mother, Kunti, as she held him close. Like many poor Indians they use one name.

Her husband, a laborer on a construction site in neighboring Bihar state, earns about 180 rupees, or $3, a day. He had to borrow $850 from a money lender to pay for his son's treatment, and had to sell his only cow.

The family is like hundreds of others in this area. They have sold their tiny fields, their cattle and their bits of family jewelry. They have buried themselves under loans they may never be able to repay. They have done all this to give their children some hope of a normal life.


Health experts say the government has made repeated mistakes in the fight against encephalitis. Most of the 7.5 million children vaccinated between 2006 and 2010 were given only a single dose of a two-dose vaccine, said Singh, of the Encephalitis Eradication Movement.

"Who is responsible for the children who died between 2006 and 2010?" Singh asked.

In 2010 the vaccination drive suddenly stopped because funds dried up. The sanitation drive never fully started.

To make matters worse, in the 23 worst-affected districts in the state, only one hospital — the Baba Raghav Das Medical College in Gorakhpur — is equipped to deal with the hundreds of sick children. They fill its 108-bed encephalitis ward.


"By the time they reach here, it's too late," said Dr. KP Kushwaha, who heads the hospital.

According to hospital data, 5,136 children with encephalitis died in its wards between 2005 and 2012. This year, 118 children had died by the end of May. The figures don't include children treated at private clinics or those who never made it to medical care.

Survivors who develop brain damage, common among young children, have no rehabilitation centers despite a 2011 court order telling the state government to set them up.

For Amit's father, Birza Majhi, there is little hope.

"People in my village have asked us to leave our son at a railway station or somewhere else. They say this boy has no future. He is just a burden on us," he said. "How can we do it, sir? As long as I'm alive I'll keep trying."