Flood Victims Fight Each Other for Food as Indian Army Airlifts Emergency Aid

Monday, August 6th 2007, 8:15 pm

By: News On 6

NEW DELHI (AP) -- Starving flood victims fought each other for scarce food supplies Monday as the Indian air force stepped up airlifts of provisions to some 2 million stranded people.

Water receded across northern India and Bangladesh after three days without significant rainfall, but the death toll from the recent flooding still surged past 360, including at least 15 people who died when heavy currents sank their boat on the flood-swollen Ganges River. About 30 more people were missing.

Air force helicopters swept low over the flooded plains of northern India for the third day, dropping more than 4,300 food packages, said Manoj Shrivastav, the Bihar state disaster management secretary.

Residents fought each other for the dropped supplies while others looted government supply trucks, said Upendera Sharma, a local government official.

Hundreds of angry villagers in Bihar state's Darbhanga district briefly kidnapped a senior official and the local police chief over the weekend, releasing them after receiving promises that an aid distribution center would be set up there, he said.

Others complained that little was being done to help them as they tried to return to their ruined homes.

Kedar Nisar said he had received only 22 pounds of rice from the government in the past week. The 62-year-old man makes a living by rowing passengers to villages across the river.

``I need money to rebuild my home,'' he said as he prepared to return to his village.

Shrivastav said the monsoon rains were the heaviest to hit the state in 30 years, with 34.5 inches of rain in 15 days, surpassing the 23.6-inch record.

Since the start of the monsoon in June, the government says more than 1,200 people have died in India alone, with scores of others killed in Bangladesh and neighboring Nepal, where floods have hit low-lying southern parts of the country.

So far this year, some 14 million people in India and 5 million in Bangladesh have been displaced by flooding, according to government figures.

In Bangladesh, the country's military-backed interim leader, Fakhruddin Ahmed, appealed to all Bangladeshis to join army and government efforts to aid the flood-affected people. ``Any natural disaster like floods brings an opportunity for the nation to stand united,'' Ahmed said.