NYT : South Asia Grapples With Results of Flooding

South Asia Grapples With Results of Flooding

By JULFIKAR ALI MANIK and SOMINI SENGUPTA | August 5, 2007

DHAKA, Bangladesh, Aug. 4 — Nothing tests the mettle of government in this part of the world than a fierce monsoon, as unusually heavy rains across South Asia showed this week, leaving a trail of death and ruin and raising the risk of disease.

Freak rains, which scientists describe as a hallmark of climate change, seemed to be responsible. The devastation was all the more severe because flimsy dams and embankments collapsed under the weight of floodwaters. The mud houses of the poor were the first to wash away.

Weather scientists have said South Asia is likely to get much more unpredictable rain in the coming decades, bringing greater challenges for its governments to prepare and cope with nature’s fury.

In Bangladesh, perennially inundated because so much of it is low-lying delta, more than half of the districts were under water. More than one million families were affected by flooding, according to government officials; the death toll after a week’s heavy rains stood at 58.

According to the country’s meteorological department, Bangladesh received just under 29 inches of rain in July, about double the average. Bangladesh also felt the brunt of greater rain upstream in northern and northeastern India, as swollen rivers broke through their banks on their way down to the Bay of Bengal, said Saiful Hossain, executive engineer of the Flood Forecasting and Warning Center, a government agency.

The flooding has presented the country’s army-backed caretaker government, which took power in January, with its latest and perhaps toughest challenge. Its impact has been felt far beyond the flood-affected districts. Prices of essential commodities, including food, have spiked in recent weeks because flooded roads have disrupted transportation. The government sought this week to dispel public anxiety over food shortages, saying that it was ready to bring food from abroad. As in all floods every year, nature shared blame with human negligence. A 600-mile flood protection dam was badly damaged this year.

In Nepal, unremitting rains for the last two weeks flooded swaths of the heavily populated southern plains, known as the Terai Region, on the border with India. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimated that up to 300,000 people were in need of water, food and other basic supplies.

Nearly 10,000 people were displaced, and 84 had been killed, said Paul Handley, a field coordinator with the agency. He added that the full scale of damage could be ascertained only in the coming days to determine how much agricultural land had been ruined and how many buildings destroyed.

Nepal, too, is accustomed to floods each year. But the unusually heavy rains this year seem to have affected more of the country, and with rainwater pooling up and refusing to recede, fragile mud buildings are threatened, and the likelihood of an outbreak of water-borne diseases like diarrhea also increases.

The United Nations and aid agencies in Nepal have already nearly exhausted their supplies of food and other goods, Mr. Handley said, although the monsoon season is not expected to end for at least another month.

In India, the monsoon’s trail of destruction traveled to the north and northeast last week. The death toll since the start of the monsoon in June stood at 1,225, according to the Home Ministry.

The military was deployed to the worst affected states, including Assam, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, where more than 12 million people have been affected by flooding over the last week. The Indian Air Force air-dropped food packets to displaced people in Bihar on Saturday, where 70,000 houses were damaged, according to the Press Trust of India,

Pakistan has already had its turn with flooding. In July rains in Baluchistan and Sindh provinces, the death toll reached 329 and 90,000 families were made homeless, the United Nations said.

Julfikar Ali Manik reported from Dhaka, and Somini Sengupta from Bangalore, India. Hari Kumar contributed reporting from New Delhi.