Death, darkness, dripping roofs in S.Asia floods
Pastor Dale Morgan
Death, darkness, dripping roofs in S.Asia floods*
Reuters
Saturday, July 28, 2007; 9:35 AM
GUWAHATI, India (Reuters) - Floods have killed at least 22 people in
India and Bangladesh, while Indian children were forced to write exams
by candlelight and beneath umbrellas as the infrastructure buckled,
officials said on Saturday.
Water spread around the outskirts of Dhaka, weather officials said on
Saturday, and the army was preparing for the possibility of flooding in
the Bangladeshi capital's eastern area where about 3 million people live.
The waters have destroyed or inundated homes or damaged crops of more
than a million people in northeast India and Bangladesh, officials say.
In India's northeastern state of Assam, eight members of a family,
including three children, were crushed to death by a landslide on
Saturday, police said.
Landslides in neighboring Arunachal Pradesh state blocked vital roads,
disrupting traffic and choking supplies, while authorities used
helicopters to pluck marooned people to safety.
Five children playing on a flooded highway in Bangladesh's northern
Jamalpur district on Friday were swept to their deaths by the surging
current, officials said.
Another five people -- including two children -- have drowned in Assam
since Friday while four flood-related deaths were reported in eastern
Bihar as heavy rains continued to top up fast-moving floodwaters.
Floods have submerged highways, including parts of India's busy Grand
Trunk road, and knocked out telephone and power lines. At least one
school in Bihar's Gopalganj district had to hold exams in a dark room
with a dripping ceiling.
For the thousands of people stuck in relief camps there was only gloomy
news from India's regional weather office, which expects heavy rains to
continue for the next few days.
Around 800 people have been killed because of the flooding in this
year's monsoon season in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan.