Flood victims in South Asia face economic devastation and threat of waterborne diseases

Weeks of continuous monsoon rains and severe flooding have wreaked havoc across South Asia, including Bangladesh, Nepal, India, and Pakistan. According to the UN OCHA Regional Office for Asia Pacific, over 40 million people have been affected. Flood waters have submerged entire villages, devastated over a million acres of agricultural crops, and left people stranded on river embankments and rooftops. There is a severe shortage of food, drinking water, and shelter, and outbreaks of waterborne diseases pose a significant public health threat. Concern Worldwide provided immediate disaster relief in Pakistan, Bangladesh and India, and is currently scaling up its response in all three countries. Concern has launched an emergency appeal to meet the urgent and ongoing survival needs of flood victims in the affected areas.
COUNTRIES AFFECTED
According to an August 15th update from the UN OCHA Regional Office for Asia Pacific, Bangladesh, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan are the countries most severely affected by the flooding. Although water levels are receding, monsoon season is not over, and the standing water in and around villages are breeding grounds for waterborne diseases and pose serious public health threats. Recent heavy rains in China, North Korea, and southern provinces of Pakistan have resulted in massive damage to crops, homes, and livelihoods. (See UN OCHA map for more details on areas affected by floods.)
In a statement regarding the scale of the damage, Mr. John Holmes, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, said, "For most families affected by these floods, the recovery of their livelihoods will be arduous and protracted. Six weeks with nothing but uncertainty can feel like forever."
CURRENT STATUS
In Bangladesh, the floods have caused enormous economic and physical damage. Over 9.5 million people have been severely affected, losing their homes and their primary means of generating income. To date, 481 people have died, and the government has reported over 58,440 people admitted to hospitals with diarrhoea. The International Center for Diarrhoeaal Disease Research (ICDDRB) reports that the rate of admission of diarrhoea patients at the center is between 900 and 1000 every 24 hours. Approximately 1.5 million acres of crops have been damaged, destroying the primary source of income for millions of people. Over 89,000 homes have been totally destroyed, and 650,000 have been partially destroyed.
In all 38 flood-affected districts of Bangladesh, there are severe outbreaks of waterborne disease, including serious diarrhoeaal diseases. Flood waters continue to inundate much of the eastern part of Dhaka, Bangladesh's capital, and many people have taken shelter in government offices and schools.
In India, continuous heavy rains have affected more than 11 million people. Flood waters have submerged or marooned several hundred villages, displacing several hundred people. More than 60,000 houses have collapsed, and many houses have been submerged under eight to ten feet of water. In villages cut off by the flooding, there is a shortage of food and drinking water, and the rains have left agricultural laborers without work for weeks. Farmers face extensive damage to and loss of crops.
Cyclone Yemyin hit Balochistan Province in Pakistan on Tuesday, June 26, 2007, bringing heavy rain, flooding and winds of up to 80 miles per hour. An estimated 2.5 million people have been affected by the floods in late June and early July, and 202 lives have been lost. An estimated 360,000 people have been left homeless.
A total of 15 out of 29 districts across the province have been affected from coastal areas to more inland districts of Balochistan. Bridges and communications infrastructures have been badly damaged and many areas remain inaccessible by road.
In North Korea, heavy rain has resulted in rivers bursting their banks, flooding huge areas of farmland and destroying thousands of homes. Access is still impossible to many of the affected, but current reports suggest that hundreds of people have been killed or are missing and that more than 30,000 houses have been destroyed. In addition, at least 800 public buildings, more than 540 bridges and extended sections of railway are reported to have been destroyed by the rain. The impact on agricultural production is likely to be considerable. Even in a good year, North Korean needs food assistance, and any additional loss of production could have serious medium-term consequences.
"The current torrential rains are causing heavier damage to farm crops than the previous ones in our country," said Ri Jae-hyon, Department Director of the DPRK Ministry of Agriculture, according to the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
CONCERN WORLDWIDE'S RESPONSE
Bangladesh
Concern has completed its relief response for 11,000 families in Sirajganj, Mainkganj and Faridpur districts. Concern was the first INGO to respond in Faridpur, the Law advisor Barrisster Mainul Hosein commended Concern's and its partner agencies quick response to help the affected people.
A 15 day food ration will be distributed to 4,000 families within this week, consisting of rice 30 kg, Pulse 3kg, Oil 2 liter, Salt 1 kg, oral rehydration salts 5 packets, Soya protein biscuits 10 packets.
High-energy biscuits are being distributed to 13,916 families in four districts (Faridpur, Rajbari, Shariatpur and Magura). Each family will receive 3kg biscuits as a supplementary food for four days.
Concern and its partner agencies are monitoring the ongoing effect of the floods and are investigating the need to establish a second phase response with the delivery of a further food ration.
India
Concern's team is assessing the impact of the floods in four districts, and plans to provide life-saving services to 10,000 families in Bihar, including emergency relief items such as water purification tablets, buckets and soap as well as food rations and sheeting for temporary shelter. Concern will also provide tarpaulin sheets to 6,500 families and cooking utensil sets to 4,000 households whose houses have been washed away. In Orissa, Concern plans to provide livelihood restoration support to about 2,500 households.
Pakistan
Concern responded quickly to the emergency created by the cyclone and floods in three flood affected districts of Balochistan. Assisting 3,400 flood affected families, Concern provided emergency relief food packages containing wheat flour, dates, rice, pulses, oil and high-energy biscuits - enough to feed a family for two weeks. Essential non-food items such as shelter, mosquito nets, hygiene kits, jerry cans and water purification tablets were also provided to each of the families.
Concern has been one of the leading agencies in this humanitarian response. It was involved in the initial assessment of the affected area with other members of the Pakistan Humanitarian Forum. Concern's Emergency Program Officer was nominated to join the World Bank/Asian Development Bank team in their detailed assessment of the needs of the affected communities. We will continue to monitor the situation in the coming weeks.
North Korea
Access to many of the flood-affected areas is still impossible, and the full extent of damage is still unknown, but the Concern program team has managed to reach one of its established program areas and is hoping to provide construction materials for families displaced by floods and to support the reconstruction of a clinic in Unhung Ri. The program team will complete an assessment of other program areas as soon as it is possible to access them.
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Pakistan: Livelihoods at stake as flood-affected areas struggle to recover

Source: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs - Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN)


KOT PALYANI, 27 August 2007 (IRIN) - Nizamuddin Lehri, deputy mayor of Nasirabad in Balochistan Province, southwestern Pakistan, gestured to his right where a water-ravaged landscape stretched into the distance in place of what was once a flourishing rice field.
"When the floods hit this area, over 40,000 acres of paddy were destroyed in just one union council," Lehri said. The loss of so much agricultural produce was going to hit the area hard because the yield per acre had ranged from Rs 20,000 to 21,000 [US$331-348], he said.
Almost two months after heavy monsoon rains and a cyclone, life has not returned to normal in the country's south and southwest.

According to the UN and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), more than 400 people died, some 2.5 million were affected and close to 380,000 people were displaced by the floods in the provinces of Sindh and Balochistan.

Problems abound for local people, with the water still not receding from hundreds of square miles and more rain making its way across the region.

Crop damage

"This whole area has an agrarian economy with rice and wheat as the main crops. But all our fields have been destroyed and our livelihoods are in ruins," Akbar Buksh, a local farmer in the sub-district of K.N. Shah, told IRIN. K.N. Shah lies within the district of Dadu, about 350km southwest of Karachi. Two months after the deluge, the water is still running six to seven feet deep across vast tracts of farmland.

In Sindh floodwater damaged about 71,806 acres out of a total of 140,000 acres sown for this year's harvest, according to a report published in the Business Recorder, a leading national broadsheet, in early August. The report said rice was hardest hit - with an estimated 3.05 million metric tonnes of produce damaged. Overall, the report concluded, about 4.41 million metric tonnes of this year's rice, cotton and sugarcane crop worth about Rs 62.8 million (US$ 1,040,899) were destroyed.

Buksh looked unhappily at dark rain clouds forming in the distance, their reflection bouncing off what used to be fields of sugarcane but was now shimmering water flecked with trees, and boats that locals were using to commute between villages or to towns that had escaped damage due their elevation.

"We've had more rain now than I can remember ever before - and it still keeps on coming," he muttered, as the rumbling of thunder grew louder.

Cut off
"Close to 200 villages are completely cut off from the rest of the world somewhere over there. We don't know if they've managed to get any help or how many are sick or dying. If the rain comes again, they're done for," the farmer said.
Experts estimate that it might take the region a few months to recover once the monsoons are over. Locals in both affected provinces, however, insist the damage is far more serious than the authorities say, and claim it might take several years to recover.
"I have to go and sell my motorbike to get enough money to be able to survive with my family for the next couple of months," a harried looking man, who introduced himself as Khalid, told IRIN.

"Our lives have been ruined and no one seems to care," he continued, clasping a weak-looking child closer to him.

Behind him, a boat had drawn up to a makeshift jetty fashioned out of a road that had a 30ft gash in it caused by rushing water. Across the teeming water, some people had halted at the edge of the road and were preparing to swim across.

"This section of the road was washed away when the floods first came," Buksh said. "No one from the government or any NGO has tried to come and see what lies beyond. People are suffering there."