India, Sep 08, 2008 - More than 257,000 of those displaced by the worst floods the Indian state of Bihar has seen in more than five decades may have to remain in temporary camps for up to six months, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said Monday (September 8). In all, some 3.4 million people have been affected by the floods that began August 18, when the Kosi River burst through a dam in neighboring Nepal and cut a new course through areas of northeastern Bihar that rarely see monsoon-triggered floods. The Indian armed forces have evacuated about 914,000 stranded people from more than 1,000 flooded villages over the last two weeks, but officials called off the evacuation operation over the weekend, saying an additional 50,000 stranded refuse to leave their areas, according to the Associated Press (AP). Another concern is that about 30,000 people have returned to their homes after seeing water levels recede slightly last week, ignoring official warnings that more rain could cause the situation to worsen at any time, the AP reported. Government engineers have been digging new channels to correct the Kosi's course and plug the mile-long (1.6-km) breach in the embankment that burst in Nepal, according to the AP. Road repairs have also begun in many areas to improve access for aid deliveries. The government estimates that about US$523 million worth of damage has been done to 1,250 miles (2,011 km) of highways and 250 bridges in Bihar, the AP reported. Relief workers continued to say Monday that they feared unsanitary, overcrowded conditions in many of the 313 state-run displacement camps would result in water-borne disease outbreaks. According to the BBC, hundreds of cases of diarrhea, pneumonia and fever have already been reported. In response, the UN's World Health Organization (WHO) is supplying emergency medicine and equipment, as well as working with the UN Disaster Management Team, the Indian Ministry of Health, Bihar's Department of Health and many other UN agencies and aid organizations to provide assistance to victims, the Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) reported. Meanwhile, in the northeastern Indian state of Assam, floods from the swollen Brahmaputra River are expected to begin receding soon, allowing many of the 2.1 million who were displaced by the floods that hit last week to return to their homes, IANS reported. This is the third wave of major flooding in Assam this monsoon season, and at least 24 people were killed as water submerged areas in 19 of the state's 27 districts, according to IANS and the BBC. The Brahmaputra is also falling in Bangladesh, where it and the country's two other major river systems rose last week, causing massive flooding that displaced 200,000 and killed at least 19, the BBC and the AP reported.
