S. Asian flood victims angry at lack of help

Hungry victims of South Asia's worst flooding in years complained yesterday that help was yet to reach them, while in some villages local politicians and officials were caught stealing from meagre stocks of food.

At least 487 people have drowned, died from snakebites, hunger or water-borne diseases, or have been crushed to death or electrocuted since devastating monsoon floods submerged swathes of the subcontinent downstream from the Himalayan mountains.

Hundreds of thousands of people remain marooned or homeless in the worst-hit eastern Indian state of Bihar, more than 10 days after what officials say are the worst floods in memory.

Police fished out 13 bodies of people who drowned in the overflowing Ganges River on Monday when their crowded boats capsized in two accidents. Another 50 are still missing.

Watching muddy flood waters gush over a road leading to his submerged village in Bihar, 23-year-old Rupesh Kumar laughs incredulously when asked if his family had received aid being dropped by air force helicopters.

"Air-drops? Forget those, we have not even seen a helicopter since flooding started 15 days ago, or a government boat," said Mr Kumar, a farmer in the impoverished state. The floods have affected around 30 million people in India and about 20 million in Bangladesh, where 164 people have died.

Yet, India has deployed only four helicopters for air-drops in Bihar, despite the United Nations saying this was insufficient.

People have been left to fight over limited food supplies, while in the badly-hit northeastern state of Assam, villagers caught seven local politicians and officials stealing and hoarding food meant for the homeless, police said.

In Bihar, thousands of furious people are waiting in makeshift shelters along highways and embankments, from where they gaze across the waters at the roofs of their nearly submerged bamboo and thatch homes.

"We are starving and almost dying," said a weary Radhika Devi, who is in her 40s, as she squatted at the entrance of her flimsy shelter of bamboo poles and a tattered, yellow tarpaulin sheet that fluttered in the wind, threatening to fly off.

Ms Devi, who has been living in her improvised home by the side of the highway with about 10 relatives, said her family had received 1 kg of crushed rice from authorities over the past 10 days.

"It didn't even last a day," she said. Aid agencies added that food was not reaching places where it was needed most and there were far-flung villages which remained cut off for more than a week.

In Bangladesh, where waters were draining from the northern districts to inundate central areas, health authorities were struggling to cope with thousands of diarrhoea cases, with inadequate medicines, beds and staff in hospitals.