Indian Hoods TOLL OF DEATH AND HAVOC GROWS

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32707, 9 September 1971, Page 13

Indian Hoods TOLL OF DEATH AND HAVOC GROWS

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright/ NEW DELHI, September 8. . Indian Army helicopters stood by today to drop food supplies to stricken areas of Uttar Pradesh, swept by monsoon floods cutting a swathe of death and destruction across 1000 miles of northern and eastern India.

They are being housed in 18 camps opened by the state Government. The city sewers have been I completely choked by flood's waters and officials fear an outbreak of epidemics. More than 27,000 villages in 50 of Uttar Pradesh’s 54 [districts have been affected I by the floods, involving a population of more than 10,000,000. More than 217,000 houses are known to have collapsed. The Indian Finance Minister (Mr Yashwantrao Chavan) yesterday flew over the worst of West Bengal’s flood areas. He said later in Calcutta that he had seen some “horrible scenes" and that more than 10,000,000 of

The helicopters were deployed in Lucknow, capitaLof Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous ■state with 90 million inhabitants. Thirteen persons were reported drowned in the state yes-1 terday, bringing the death toll to at least 268 since floods struck in July. In other states 27 more deaths resulting from the floods were reported. Deaths in all flood-affected states probably total at least 1500 since July. At least 12 people died yesterday when houses collapsed after heavy rains in Hazaribagh, Bihar. Four persons drowned when a passenger bus was carried away by a swollen river in the state of Rajasthan. Three children aged 10 to 14 were drowned in a village pond swollen by heavy rains in Punjab state. Today’s Uttar Pradesh helicopter airlift is directed especially towards the Lakhimpur region, about 75 miles north of Lucknow, which is completely marooned by floodwaters. Yesterday, food supplies were dropped to several marooned communities in West Bengal. Meanwhile, floodwaters continued to rise in Lucknow itself. A quarter of the area of the city of 650,000 people was under 2ft to 4ft of water and the Gomati River, which flows through Lucknow before later joining the Ganges was last night 6ft above the danger mark. At another point along its course the Gomati was 40ft above danger level. More than 25,000 people have been moved from Lucknow in the last 24 hours.

| West Bengal’s 45.000,000 people had been hit by the floodwaters.