Fresh floods hit stricken Indians

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32700, 1 September 1971, Page 17

Fresh floods hit stricken Indians

(N Z.P.A.-Reuter— Copyright) NEW DELHI, August 31. About 800,000 more people have been affected by fresh floods in the southern part of West Bengal in the past three days, according to Government officials in Calcutta. In the Nadia district, where hundreds of thousands of East Pakistan refugees are housed, 80 per cent of the town of Kirhsnaganj is reported to be under water.

The Indian Prime Minister (Mrs Gandhi) today began a three-day inspection tour of West Bengal and Bihar, in which states more than seven million people have been affected. The Prime Minister’s itinerary includes visits to Several Pakistani refugee camps.

As the situation in the northern part of West Bengal began to improve yesterday, incessant rain caused rivers to burst their banks in the Midnapore district, south of Calcutta. A continuous downpour in Calcutta itself has caused delays to air services and has interfered with rail traffic.

In Uttar Pradesh, the floods that have swept across the state in the last few weeks have claimed 133 lives and affected 50 of its 54 districts.

The Minister of Revenue (Mr Udit Narain Sharma) told the Legislative Assembly in Lucknow today that the damage to houses and crops from what he described as the worst floods the state had experienced amounted to 710 million rupees (about sB6m). More than 400 million rupees (about s47m) was needed for relief work, he said.

The death toll in the recent floods that devastated large areas of northern and eastern India is not . yet

known. It is feared that about 1000 people may have died.

The District Magistrate of Midnapore (Mr B. R. Chakravorty) said today that 20in of rain had fallen there in the last 72 hours.

At least three people had died and 12,000 houses had been swept away.

Troops were helping in relief operations, but many roads were under water and

rail services had also been severely disrupted. The Howrah and Hooghly districts, north of Calcutta, have also been hit hard by the heavy rains. Mrs Gandhi will fly over the flooded areas in the north on Wednesday. There, the Ganges and Mahananda rivers have begun to recede, but have left thousands of people homeless.