Severity of Bihar floods intensifies: Five million now homeless
Children who were forced to leave their homes to esacape flooding are now facing severe health threats. The health department has confirmed several cases of diarrhoea and there are reports of an outbreak of measles in the relief camps.
Wednesday 3 September 2008
Some of these children will be living in temporary camps until April 2009 following an announcement by the Indian government that the breach in the river Kosi will not be repaired for seven months.
Several areas will remain water logged until next year. This means children will be unable to return home, farmers will not be able to get back to work and damaged schools are unlikely to be repaired or rebuilt.
Meanwhile, the scale of the disaster becomes increasingly serious as the number of people forced to leave their homes by the floods rises to five million, including three million children. This is six times the number of people that were made homeless by the cyclone in Myanmar four months ago and 7.5 times the number of people in India that were made homeless after the tsunami in 2004.
Thomas Chandy, head of Save the Children in India, said: “The reported death toll is not high, but the number of people affected by this flooding is on an unimaginable scale. We are facing a huge task and desperately need more money to enable us to reach more of those children who are living in terrible conditions who need our help. We must act now to prevent the death-toll rising further as children succumb to disease, hunger or exposure while they wait.”
Children in Bihar were already some of the poorest and most vulnerable even before the floods. Over a million children were working and 600,000 women were married young, before the age of 18. Around 56% of children in the state were underweight and 85 in every 1,000 children die before they reach their fifth birthday, more than the Indian average of 76 per 1,000.
Mr Chandy continued: “Severe shortage of foods unhygienic conditions and lack of clean drinking war and malnutrition due to the disaster further increases the levels of hunger and the death rate.”
Save the Children has launched a £1 million appeal for the children of Bihar and has already begun responding to the emergency by giving out food, water purification tablets, tarpaulins for shelter and medical assistance.
How you can help
Please donate to our India floods appeal now
