Millions still displaced after Indian floods
Updated
Nearly three and a half million people are still stranded in makeshift camps in northern India... their villages and land devastated by heavy monsoonal floods. Aid agencies are working frantically in the states of Bihar and Assam to get supplies to the displaced.
Presenter: Sonja Heydeman
Speaker: Jayanth Vincent, World Vision India
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VINCENT: It'll take until December before people can even think of starting to go back, which means that they are going to be in camps till that time, and then there needs to be more involved relief procedures that have to be put in place in the camps. World Vision is involved in two or three camps in the Madhipura area which is one of the worst affected districts in Bihar and providing cooked food as well non-food items, such as clothing, bedding, kitchen utensils and hygiene kits, so that they can sort of a place for them in the camp and as people start moving back, we would be providing them with food rations, as well as materials for temporary shelters and then go back with them to see how we could help them rebuild their lives.
HEYDEMAN: I understand more than 3.4 million people have been displaced by the floodwaters in Bihar region over the last number, few weeks. Is that a realistic figure?
VINCENT: The total number of displaced is really close to that, because this is about water flooding, the river changing course and flooding places which were homes and villages and small towns, so that means people cannot live anymore there and they are moving to higher ground, which is around highways and railway tracks and schools and other camps in and around cities which are above waters.
HEYDEMAN: How are you managing the situation for people to be able to access firstly clean water and also managing sanitation, given the number of people displaced and the number of people requiring to be set up in makeshift camps?
VINCENT: Across the board, that's been the biggest challenge, clean water as quickly as possible and access to sanitation, especially for women and girls. In the camps that we are working in we've been able to set up water filtration systems in partnership with other corporates and that is slowly starting to kick in.
Sanitation is something of a challenge, which means we have to set up latrines and have clean water available there and I think that's what we're working on at the moment.
HEYDEMAN: How dire is the current situation for those people that are not able to go back to their homes?
VINCENT: I think it's fairly desperate situation in that almost all of the people living in camps had to leave their homes, because they are flooded and they would like to go back, but they also know that the situation back home is something that they have to face, crops washed out. They don't know how their land. All of this has to rebuilt from the ground up, so I think it is a fairly desperate situation.
