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Heavy Floods Languishing Many South Asian Lives

Amit Pyakurel - 8/8/2007

Many lives in the South Asian region have recently been heavily languished due to the upsurge of flood provoked by insistent monsoon rainfall and melting down of snow from the nearby mountains. The water has flown overwhelmingly into huge portions of Nepal, Indian, and Bangladesh, into the nooks and corners of the ordinary livelihoods, leaving many people dead and scores of them homeless. A recent official estimation shows that more than 200 have died in these regions and 20 million people are fated homeless. It's reported that at least 1,400 people have died due to the flooding since June, the overflow described to be the worst to strike these regions since decades.

The southern and western parts of Nepal have been severely affected by the flood raised by the heavy rainfall in the earlier week. The places hardly hit by the weeklong overflow are Mahottari, Saptari, Nepalgunj, Janakpur, Sunsari, Dhankuta, Illam, Dang, which has left many businesses, educational institutes, government offices, transportation, and emergency services like ambulances and brigades in the region, out of order. Some parts also saw the shortage of electricity for some time, adding to the scourge of the victims and difficulty in aid processes.

Not only people, but their food and cattles also drowned in the water, alongside other basic economic belongings, making their lives further difficult to sustain in the coming days. Around 270,000 people have been affected, mostly in the southern plains adjoining India.

Meanwhile, the aid agency PLAN, besides the UN and other aid agencies, has opted to help in a long-term rehabilitation by providing assistance and levying for the needed additional funds to the affected areas in Nepal. Reports suggest that the heavily flooded areas also include the places occupied by PLAN where it has been subsidizing help for many underprivileged children and their families.

Lately, in Bangladesh, it's reported that more than 100 people have already died since the flooding had started in the country a week back. The death toll could reach to 500 according to Saiful Hossian, a spokesman for the Bangladesh Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre. In India, 2 million villagers have been stranded following the overnight heavy rainfall on August 5th alone.

Another horrible outcome of this overflow has been spotted in the northern states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar of India, as the UN has described that these areas are inflicted by the worst floods in living memory, which has left over one 14 million people affected. A statement from the UN stated, "The sheer size and scale of flooding and the massive numbers of people affected pose an unprecedented challenge to the delivery of desperately needed humanitarian assistance."

World Vision's emergency relief teams have sarted helping in the vital needs of the hardest hit people in India and Bangladesh. Franklin Joseph, Director of Humanitarian and Emergency Affairs for World Vision in India, said, "We are coordinating efforts with the Inter Agency Group (a coalition of government and aid agencies) and will be providing instant meals immediately." The worst affected regions of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh will be provided dry rations like flattened rice and powdered wheat, besides medicines, cooking utensils, and clothing, as Joseph described. The World Vision is also working with the Bangladeshi government to hand out food and other essentials like candles, matches, and soap to the most affected communities in the Netrokona district, 159 km. north of Dhaka.

Recently, as the severity of the flood has quite been alleviating due to the easing of the monsoon rain, the lives of the residents in the highly affected regions however seems beginning to come to normal. But the enduring problems concerning the millions of people already gone homeless, the following-up of the health problems due to the poor hygiene in the affected regions, and immediate and long-term shortages of food, drinking water, and clothing, are yet to be dealt with no less challenges.

We could merely consider that flood related disasters is not new to the South Asian region. But the recent turnover has all been able to attract the world attention more than ever before, concerning the severity it has caused to the millions of lives across the region. The history of the annual flooding in the region has yet again repeated, which has destroyed mainly the frail housings of the poor population living here. It has further revealed the vulnerability of the poor and defenseless population in the region to the natural calamity like this, also exposing the difficulty in providing aid to the worst hit communities.

Aid agencies and local authorities are trying to deliver food, medicines, health care facilities, and other requisites to the millions of people fated homeless and marooned across the South Asian region. But the aid officials are warning that the aid efforts have been dramatically insufficient till date. Scores of people are not only homeless, but they are stranded out of reach of the aid facilities in many places due to the geographical difficulty and hazards created by the flood itself.

As the danger of people being left to starve due to the scarcity of food still looms large, there is also the obvious aftermath of the mishap relating to the health hazards in the flood victims. The lack of proper and basic sanitation have started to trigger the waterborne and airborne diseases like cholera, malaria, typhoid in among many of the flood victims, for which medicines and medical workers need to reach the most needy spots in the affected regions, without delay, to alleviate the further rise in the death toll.