Floodwaters
continued to rise Tuesday in West Bengal state, and an aid worker
said some stranded people were so hungry and desperate that they
were jumping from treetops into passing relief boats.
More than
700 people have died in India and Bangladesh since Sept. 18 when
late monsoon rains flowed over riverbanks and dams, drowning the
tree-lined frontier between the two countries under 10 feet of
water.
An additional
329 people have been killed by flooding in Southeast Asia, where
the Mekong River has burst its banks.
The floods
left more than 10 million people homeless in eastern India; some
125,000 were reported homeless in Bangladesh.
Grant Cassidy,
a relief worker for World Vision, described desperate scenes near
Ranaghat, 40 miles north of Calcutta, the capital of Bengal state.
Cassidy and
a relief team found refugees huddling under tarpaulin sheets in
muddy fields with scarce food supplies. He said floodwaters were
rising two to three inches a day.
``People are
living on rooftops and climbing into trees,'' Cassidy said in
an interview from Calcutta, adding that some were so tired and
hungry that if a boat went by, they were flinging themselves from
the trees into the craft.
``All sorts
of ... small makeshift craft are bringing people in,'' he said.
Cassidy's team walked thigh-deep in water to reach refugee camps
on patches of higher ground. When they walked back a few hours
later on Monday, the water was waist high, although it was sunny
and hot, he said.
``There are
not enough boats,'' Cassidy said. ``The national highway is just
an island. The military is doing its operations from there.''
Calcutta itself
was on alert after nearby sandbagged sluice gates collapsed and
floodwaters seeped into the city. Police advised people in low-lying
areas to move to safer places.
Boatmen in
Bihar, one of India's poorest states, have refused to carry marooned
villagers, claiming they were never paid for last year's flood
rescue work. Indian officials said a strike by state administrative
officers further hampered the rescue operations.
Cassidy said
no medicine had been delivered to fight waterborne disease, and
local agencies were cooking pots of rice and lentils for rationing.
The military has made some air drops, but the neediest people
could still be inaccessible, he said.
In Bangladesh,
the army used speedboats to rescue some villagers, said regional
politician Ayub Hossain. ``The army is focusing on evacuation,
not on distribution of food and water.''
Officials
say at least 125,000 people have lost their homes in Bangladesh--mainly
mud and thatch huts--but unofficial estimates say as many as 250,000
could be homeless. Authorities acknowledge 500,000 people were
marooned in their villages with no way out except by boat.
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