Nita Bhalla
Indian floods leave 50 people dead, almost half a million displaced - Nita Bhalla
Posted on 08 Jul, 2010 04:15 PMArticle Courtesy : Reuters AlertNet
Written by: Nita Bhalla
NEW DELHI (AlertNet) - Floods triggered by heavy monsoon rains have killed more than 50 people and displaced almost half a million more in India's south and northeast, say government officials.
Overflowing rivers and reservoirs have inundated low-lying villages mainly in India's oil and tea-rich state of Assam, but also on the opposite side of country in the southwestern coastal state of Kerala.
Flood-affected people sit in a damaged hut
as they wait for relief supplies in Lakhimpur
district, in India's northeastern state of Assam.
FILE PHOTO, July 2009. REUTERS/Stringer
According to the ministry of home affairs, almost one million people have been hit by the floods, forcing almost half a million to leave their water-logged villages and seek shelter in government relief camps.
Mountainous Assam, where five people have drowned, has been the worst-affected with 13 out of 27 districts hit by flooding, including Kokrajhar, Lakhimpur, Baksa and Bongaigaon.