S. Asia battles with flood havoc

S. Asia battles with flood havoc

Agencies Dhaka/New Delhi

The death toll from floods ravaging South Asia soared to at least 1,120 on Tuesday as the World Food Program (WFP) warned Bangladesh was facing a "major humanitarian crisis" and India's prime minister took to the air to survey relief efforts in his country.

Experts warned that the flood waters that have submerged two- thirds of Bangladesh leaving 30 million people cut off or homeless will not recede for at least a week and that the situation will get worse before it improves.

Vast swathes of land across Bangladesh remained under water Tuesday with only trees and rooftops visible in some places, officials said.

Nearly half of the capital has been inundated turning some streets into rivers and forcing 250,000 of the city's most vulnerable inhabitants out of their slum homes.

At least 100 more people were reported killed in floods in Bangladesh on Tuesday, taking the death toll from three weeks of devastation to almost 400 in the country, officials said.

A high tide in the Bay of Bengal would prevent water dispersing because the sea level is expected to remain slightly higher until after the full moon on Aug. 2, experts said.

In the meantime, water dispersing from northern areas would continue to gush downstream resulting in worsening flooding in central Bangladesh.

The government discussed the joint distribution of aid with non-governmental organization representatives in Dhaka on Monday, although it said it had sufficient relief materials to meet current demand, BSS said.

The World Food Program (WFP) warned the low-lying country "could face a major humanitarian crisis" in coming days and said it was preparing to distribute 3,000 tonnes of rice to people in northern and central Bangladesh.

"The WFP is particularly concerned about the upcoming high tide in the Bay of Bengal expected in early August, which would considerably limit the outflow of flood waters into the sea," UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said in New York on Monday.

Britain said it would provide US$18 million for relief supplies to be delivered via the WFP and the United Nations Development Fund, BSS said.

The U.S. has also said it would donate $50,000 dollars in emergency assistance.

It is the worst flooding in Bangladesh since 1988 when about 3,500 people died.

The floods have left more than 10 million people homeless. Agriculture officials said paddy and other crops worth $380 million had been lost.

The floods have killed more than 1,000 people across South Asia, including about 450 in India's eastern state of Bihar.

This year's death toll in Bihar was the highest in three years of recurring floods. State relief and rehabilitation officer R.S. Tewari said he expected the toll to rise as rescuers reached remote parts of the impoverished state where water was receding.

"The details came in only after the waters began receding and our communication systems were restored," said Upendra Sharma, spokesman of eastern Bihar's state's disaster management department.

"Most of the recoveries were made from the remotest of remote areas," Sharma told reporters in Patna, from where Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday took off on an aerial tour of the state's flood-affected areas.

Singh, accompanied by three cabinet ministers, was to survey relief operations in the worst affected districts of Darbhanga, Begusarai, Khagaria and Samastipur, officials said.

Bihar Chief Minister Rabri Devi is to ask Singh for some 72 billion rupees ($1.5 billion) as compensation for flood damages, senior state official K. Subramanian said.

"This amount is based only on the estimated calculation of damages to roads, bridges, crops and public properties and actual loss could be calculated only when floods are over," said Subramanian.