Not only Bengal,Not Only India,Asia suffers from floods unabated! Hundreds dead, 1 million displaced as monsoon rains hit Myanmar, India, Pakistan!
High Tides waterlogged Belur Math as whole of Bengal seems to be under water as Mamata Banerjee keeps on vigil and takes pain to reach among the masses stung by unprecedented calamity.
Palash Biswas
Not only Bengal,Not Only India,Asia suffers from floods unabated! Hundreds dead, 1 million displaced as monsoon rains hit Myanmar, India, Pakistan!Monsoon rains have claimed the lives of hundreds of people across Asia as rescue workers scrambled to reach remote areas of India, Pakistan and Myanmar in the wake of flash floods and landslides.
High Tides waterlogged Belur Math as whole of Bengal seems to be under water as Mamata Banerjee keeps on vigil andtakes pain to reach among the masses stung by unprecedented calamity.
Authorities in India said more than 120 people had died across the country in recent days.
More than a million have been displaced by rains worsened by a cyclone that barrelled through the Bay of Bengal last week.
At least 75 people have died and tens of thousands have had to take refuge in state-run relief camps after heavy rains caused floods and landslides in eastern India, government officials and aid groups said on Monday.
Exacerbated by Cyclone Komen which struck the east coast on Friday, the rainfall has made major rivers overflow, inundating villages in parts of West Bengal, Odisha and Manipur states. The rains also caused a landslide in Manipur, killing 21 people.
"In the last four years, there has been no flood like this year. So far, we have witnessed man-made floods and we have restricted them quite successfully. But the situation at present is rendered beyond control," Mamata Banerjee, chief minister of West Bengal, the worst affected state, told reporters on Sunday.
Banerjee said the release of water from over-full dams in the neighboring states of Jharkhand and Odisha had worsened the flooding in West Bengal, where at least 49 people have died.
Around 200,000 people have been shifted to relief camps in districts such as Burdwan, Hoogly, Howrah and North 24 Parganas in West Bengal, and plastic sheets and dry food rations have been dispatched to survivors, one official said.
Flood situation in south Bengal districts remained grim on Monday after fresh water was released from different barrages, compounding the woes of over 37 lakh people in 12 affected districts.
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who stayed at state secretariat Nabanna overnight to personally monitor the flood situation, would visit Habra and Ashoknagar areas of North 24 Parganas to monitor the relief and rescue operations there.
"Flood situation in the state still remained a matter of concern after fresh water was released from different barrages since last night. High tides worsened the situation," state irrigation minister Rajib Banerjee told PTI.
Among others DVC has itself released 90000 cusecs of water since midnight last night, the minister added.
Television pictures showed people carrying bags packed with possessions as they waded through knee-high water, villagers standing on the banks of rising rivers and scores of children sitting in lines in a camp being fed rice and lentils.
India has monsoon rains from June to September, which are vital for agriculture. But the rains often cause damage affecting millions of people, devastating crops, destroying homes and sparking outbreaks of diseases such as diarrhea.
In the remote northeastern state of Manipur, many parts of Thoubal and Chandel districts have also been affected by the rains, aid agencies said.
"A massive landslide triggered by heavy rainfall in Chandel district swept away one village claiming about 21 lives so far," a situation report from Sphere India, a network of humanitarian agencies, said.
Officials said teams from the National Disaster Management Response Force and the army had been sent on search and rescue operations but roads and bridges had been washed away, making it difficult to reach stranded survivors.
In Odisha, where floods have disrupted more than half a million people's lives, state disaster management officials said they believed the worst was over.
"We had evacuated about 2,000 people during the floods last week but all of them returned to their homes. The situation has improved in most of the areas," Odisha Deputy Relief Commissioner Prabhat Ranjan Mohapatra told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
On Monday rescuers resumed their search for villagers after downpours caused a landslide in remote north-eastern Manipur, where an official said four bodies have been recovered from a hamlet buried by a collapsed hill.
In neighbouring Myanmar, the belt of heavy seasonal rains — augmented by Cyclone Komen — have killed 46 people so far and affected more than 200,000 with much of the country languishing under rooftop-high floods.
PHOTO: A resident sits on high ground near a flooded area in Kalay, upper Myanmar's Sagaing region
The government there has focused relief and rescue efforts on four "national disaster-affected regions" in central and western Myanmar, where villagers have been forced to use canoes and makeshift rafts to escape the rising waters.
Thousands of others are already in camps for the displaced including in Kalay, Sagaing Region, where residents told of unusually powerful flood waters swamping homes in hours.
"We've lost all that we have. Our house is still under water," Htay Shein said from a temporary shelter in Kalay.
"We have seen floods, but never anything like this before. This year is the worst."
The United Nations warned swollen rivers were threatening more areas of the country, adding it could be days before the true extent of the disaster emerged.
"Logistics are extremely difficult. Assessment teams are having a hard time reaching affected areas," said Pierre Peron, Myanmar spokesman for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Landslides in Chin state — south of Sagaing — have destroyed 700 homes in the state capital Hakha, according to the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar.
President Thein Sein promised the government would do its utmost to provide relief, but said parts of Chin had been cut off from surrounding areas, the report added.
Rains have also battered the western state of Rakhine which already hosts about 140,000 displaced people, mainly Rohingya Muslims, who live in exposed coastal camps following deadly 2012 unrest between the minority group and Buddhists.
Limitations facing search and rescue
The annual monsoon is a lifeline for farmers across the region but the rains and frequent powerful cyclones that usher them in can also prove deadly.
Poor infrastructure and limited search and rescue capabilities routinely hamper relief efforts across the region, more so as roads, phone lines and electricity are knocked out by rising waters.
India, which receives nearly 80 per cent of its annual rainfall from June to September, sees tragedy strike every monsoon season.
This year West Bengal has been hit hard with 48 people killed, according to state management minister Javed Ahmad Khan.
"More than 1.8 million people in 5,600 villages have been affected by the flooding ... nearly 1.1 million have been moved to camps," Mr Khan said.
"If there are no rains, the water level will come down in the next few days."
Pakistan, which has suffered deadly floods around the same time every year since 2010 — when the country was struck by the worst inundations in its history — has seen 116 people die so far.
Ahmed Kamal, spokesman for Pakistan's National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) told AFP that more than 850,000 people had been affected by this year's floods.
Dozens have also perished in Nepal and Vietnam following floods and landslides.
In Vietnam toxic mudslides from flood-hit coal mines in the northern province of Quang Ninh, home to the UNESCO-listed Halong Bay tourist site, claimed the lives of two families and spewed coal into town centres.