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Floods threaten West Bengal and Bangladesh |
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September 28, 2000
CALCUTTA (AP) - Flood waters fed by late monsoon rains gushed over the banks of the Hooghly River, shoved aside sandbag barriers and inundated much of the 300-year-old city of Calcutta on Wednesday. More rain and a high tide are predicted Thursday, which could submerge most of the city and wipe out next week's celebrations of the region's main Hindu religious festival - Durga Puja. Policemen in jeeps patrolled the crowded shanty clusters alongside the river, warning impoverished residents over loudspeakers to move to safer areas. High tides flushed torrents of water from the Hooghly into the two main canals flowing through the city, home to more than 13 million people. Nearly 757 people are dead or missing in the floods that have submerged vast tracts of eastern India and Bangladesh. and marooned more than 11 million. The unusual late monsoon floods have caused more than 30 billion rupees (dlrs 671 million) of damage in India's West Bengal state alone. The relief commissioner's office confirmed 690 dead and missing in the state. "I have not seen such a high tide in the Hooghly during the four decades that I've been living in this area," said Samar Haldar, a resident of the low-lying Kalighat district of south Calcutta, one of the first places that was submerged. In neighboring Bangladesh, where more than 1 million people have been affected by the floods, pirates in boats looted rice, cattle and furniture from the homes of thousands of people who fled their marooned villages. "Riding fishing trawlers, pirates are looting the property of many flood victims," Rifat Rahman of Dhaka's Bhorer Kagoj newspaper, reported after touring flooded areas in Chuadanga district. Calcutta victims waded from their flooded homes or rowed in boats to a partially constructed market complex where the government was planning to relocate street hawkers as part of a cleanup drive. Local volunteers set up community kitchens to provide cooked food, mostly rice gruel and lentils, to the nearly 55,000 people in the city rendered homeless by the floods. In the nine worst hit districts of West Bengal state, air force helicopters continued to drop food and water packets to people marooned on roof tops since the floods began on Sept. 18. A 55-year-old woman was killed and another injured when they were hit by bags of rice dropped from a helicopter in Murshidabad district, about 160 kilometers (100 miles) north of Calcutta. "We have told the police to alert the people and to evacuate those who live in flood prone areas," said Buddhadev Bhattacharya, deputy chief minister of West Bengal, of which Calcutta is the capital. A Calcutta weather official said a high tide was expected Thursday, that could reach a height of 6.4 meters (21.12 feet) and flood the whole city. "High tide is a regular phenomenon this time of year. But it's worse now because the Hooghly is in spate and the rains are continuing," said R. N. Goldar, director of the Alipore meteorological office. More rain was predicted for the next 24 hours, he said. Calcutta residents were also worried that the floods will wash away the annual surge in business that accompanies Durga Puja, the 10-day celebrations honoring the Hindu warrior goddess, Durga. The festival is known as Dusshera in other parts of India. During the festivities, to start in a week, Bengalis traditionally buy new clothes and utensils, paint their homes and indulge in feasting. "The floods have ruined everytVb&G' said shopkeeper Ramen Saha. "We were expecting brisk sales during these days. I don't know how I am going to feed my family in the coming months." Hundreds of shopowners in the Kalighat area hastily pulled metal shutters over the fronts of their stalls as water seeped in. West Bengal's finance minister, shim Dasgupta said, "We have made a rough estimate of the damage caused by the floods," more than 30 billion rupees (dlrs 671 million). In Bihar, one of India's poorest states, the flood waters are receding. At least 39 people have died and thousands are still stranded without food and water. Army helicopters dropped food packets in the worst hit districts. In Bangladesh, at least 200,000 people have lost their homes as swirling waters swept away thousands of mud-and-thatch huts across the farming region that shares a border with India's West Bengal state, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. The homeless have taken shelter in hundreds of makeshift relief camps, school buildings and on river embankments. At least 800,000 Bangladeshis are still living in their flooded villages, many of them perched on house roofs or on trees. Dhaka newspapers reported 10 people drowned in swirling flood waters on Tuesday, raising the unofficial flood death toll to 28. The government has confirmed eight dead. Most of Bangladesh's more than 200 rivers have origins in India. The rivers, some of them running down from the Himalayas, flush through Bangladesh, a delta nation of 130 million people, into the Bay of Bengal. |