Death toll in India floods tops 300

Oct 7, 2009, 10:04 GMT

   New Delhi - Relief workers and soldiers rushed relief goods to thousands of marooned villagers and moved them to safer places as the death toll from floods in India's southern and western states reached 303, news reports said Wednesday.

   Water-levels in the flood-devastated southern states of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka continued to recede with the rains subsiding as the local administration distributed food rations and other relief material.

   The floods, described as the worst in the region in 60 years, left at least 2.5 million homeless and caused a loss of 320 billion rupees (6.7 billion dollars), government officials said.

   At least 206 people have been killed in Karnataka alone, the PTI news agency reported, adding that the death toll in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh state had reached 63.

   The western Maharashtra state registered 34 deaths in the floods driven by days of torrential rains around last weekend.

   Teams of doctors and paramedics fanned out to the affected regions to prevent the outbreak of waterborne diseases.

   More than 1.1 million people were lodged in thousands of government-run relief camps in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. But there were scores of victims living in remote villages whom aid had not reached.

   'There is no water to drink. No place to stay, no one has come to our help. I do not know who I can tell my story of woe to,' a flood-victim in Andhra Pradesh's Kurnool district told the NDTV network.

   'Many displaced people are in fear and shock and the situation on the ground is rather chaotic,' Simon Burroughs, coordinator with the Medecins Sans Frontieres aid group said.

   'Access to the affected people is difficult as the main infrastructure has been damaged, as bridges and railway tracks were swept away,' he added.

   Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is due to make an aerial survey of the flood-ravaged areas of the southern states on Friday.

   Meanwhile, 20 deaths were reported as heavy rains lashed India's northern Uttar Pradesh state on Tuesday, the IANS news agency reported. Most of the casualties were due to wall and roof collapses, officials told the news agency.

   More than 1,600 people have died across 19 of India's 28 states during the monsoon rains this year, the federal Home Ministry said.

   The monsoon season usually begins in June and wanes by September. Heavy cloud formations over the Arabian Sea to the west of India's southern peninsula and a depression over the Bay of Bengal in the east have caused the unusually heavy rains in the southern states, according to the Meteorology Department.