Indian flood victims loot food stores

Volunteers of Indian NGO Rama Krishna Mission distribute food among flood victims in Samastipur, some 110km north of Patna yesterday. Another five people drowned in floods ravaging South Asia while authorities in India's eastern Bihar state called for more troops amid widespread looting of government food stores. PHOTO: AFP

The latest deaths, in India's northeastern Assam and Meghalaya states, brings to at least 356 the number of people killed in the floods affecting Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal, according to the authorities in the various countries.

Some 23 million people, mainly in India and Bangladesh, have been affected or displaced by the flooding, which began with the annual monsoon rains in mid-June.

The chief magistrates of Rosera and Samastipur districts of Bihar sent calls Sunday for more army help as the flood situation deteriorated, officials said.

In Rosera, hundreds of flood victims looted supplies from government relief centers Saturday evening, the office of the district magistrate said.

The victims also staged protests outside the offices of the sub-divisional officer and deputy superintendent of police, trapping them inside for hours, an official in the state capital Patna said.

Similar incidents of the looting of food were reported from Samastipur, Darbhanga and Madhubani districts as flood victims complained of poor relief distribution, police said.

Hundreds of soldiers using 40 boats are already distributing flood relief but with more than 12 million people affected, many in remote areas have yet to be reached, a disaster management official said.

The army has so far air-dropped 226 tonnes of food materials in some 210 sorties with the help of seven helicopters in Bihar, a government statement said.

In neighbouring Assam state, the news was equally grim.