India army provides flood relief

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/world/south_asia/7462136.stm

Version 0 of 1.

The Indian army has been called out to help civil authorities deal with a worsening flood situation in the states of West Bengal and Assam.

Heavy rains lashed Assam on Thursday and the Brahmaputra river burst its banks, washing away several villages and displacing nearly 30,000 people.

The number of people affected in Assam has risen to nearly half a million.

The eastern state of Orissa has also been affected by heavy flooding, with at least seven people dead.

'Grim'

The BBC's north-east Indian correspondent, Subir Bhaumik, says that 10 people have been killed so far in Assam while 19 are dead in the neighbouring state of Arunachal Pradesh, which has been hit by a series of flood-related landslides.

Assam government spokesman Dinesh Deka told the BBC that at least 20 villages in the state's worst-hit Lakhimpur district had been inundated by floodwaters from the Brahmaputra since Tuesday.

Tens of thousands of people have been displaced by the flooding

That is in addition to 378 villages that were hit by flooding over the weekend.

Assam's chief minister, Tarun Gogoi, went on an aerial survey of Lakhimpur on Tuesday and visited relief camps.

"I have instructed officials to take all possible measures for relief and rehabilitation," he said.

Officials say that the Brahmaputra has breached more than a dozen vital embankments, besides sweeping away road bridges and stretches of highways.

They describe the situation in the state as "grim".

Since the weekend, the army has been using rafts and boats to rescue stranded people in Lakhimpur.

Meanwhile officials in the state of Orissa say that the heavy rains and flooding have severely disrupted normal life.

About 150,000 people in the districts of Mayurbhanj and Balasore have been affected.

Orissa's minister for revenue and disaster management, Manmohan Samal, said that relief teams had been rushed to Balasore and that the Indian Air Force was on stand-by.

Officials said that both the major rivers of northern Orissa - the Subaranarekha and the Baitarani - were flowing above their danger levels on Wednesday and were likely to rise further as the rains continue.

Weather experts say that with more heavy rains expected in parts of northern Orissa over the next 48 hours, the situation is likely to worsen.