Mizzima: Drought and floods threate

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Drought and Floods threaten millions in South Asia, warns IFRC

New Delhi, July 8, 2000
Mizzima News Group (www.mizzima.com)

Severe drought is threatening the livelihood of more than 3.5 million in
South Asia. Tens of thousands of farmers and nomads living in Western
India and in south-western and south-eastern Pakistan have no access to
fresh water, resulting in crop failure and the loss of livestock, said
the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
(IFRC).

"This is a disaster which will not go away. We fear the situation will
only get worse, and more people will suffer," says Geoff Dennis, head of
the IFRC's south Asia regional delegation in New Delhi yesterday.

The Geneva-based IFRC, in cooperation with the Indian Red Cross, is
planning to distribute food and seeds to around 30, 000 drought victims
in the states of Gujurat and Rajastan of India, who have no access to
government's aid.

Meanwhile, over the past few weeks, flash floods in the north-eastern
states of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh in India and in parts of Nepal and
Bangladesh have claimed more than 100 lives and have displaced hundreds
of thousands of people from their homes.

In Assam alone, more than 1,000 villages have been submerged, with
500,000 people badly affected and at least 200,000 forced to live in
makeshift shelters or on raised embankments, said a release of IFRC
yesterday.

Flash floods and heavy downpours in Rangpur and Sylhet districts of
Bangladesh have already affected more than 250,000 people in the area
and more than 40 people have died since mid-June due to flash floods and
landslides in Nepal.

IFRC has warned that major rivers in the region such as the Ganges and
the Brahmaputra which run south through Assam (India) into north-western
Bangladesh have been flowing well above the danger levels.