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| Sunday, 4 August 2002 |
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Diseases caused by floods in northeastern India kills 110 Floods in the northeastern Indian state of Assam have caused more than 600 million dollars worth of damage and led to a range of epidemics that have claimed 110 lives, officials said Saturday. Assam's Chief Minister, Tarun Gogoi, said initial estimates put the loss from the floods at 30 billion rupees (612 million dollars) but the final figure would be much higher. Assam has been reeling under floods for the past month, with at least 41 people drowning or being washed away by the swollen waters of the Brahmaputra river. The floods have also left about five million people from 5,500 villages homeless. Although the waters have begun to recede the state is now battling diarrhoea, encephalitis and other epidemics, a local official said. At least 14 people, most of them tea garden workers, died of gastroenteritis in eastern Assam's Golaghat district this week, while hundreds of others fell ill with the disease. "The tea garden management didn't inform us about the outbreak of gastroenteritis and so the disease is assuming serious proportions," J.B. Ekka, Golaghat District Magistrate told AFP by telephone. Ten other people died this week of Japanese-B encephalitis, bringing to 90 the death toll from the disease since the beginning of July, according to Nandita Choudhary, the principal of Assam Medical College. Encephalitis causes inflammation of the brain tissue, producing symptoms of high fever, headache, loss of voice and involuntary movement of the body. The disease is transmitted by mosquitoes from late spring to early autumn. Other water-borne diseases have claimed six lives in the past fortnight in various parts of eastern Assam, Choudhary said. Assam Health Minister Bhumidhar Barman said the government was taking all possible steps to ensure that the epidemics were contained. The International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) also sounded a warning about outbreaks of water-borne diseases, including malaria. "Wells will be contaminated and there will be a lot of stagnant water on the ground which is a perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes," an IFRC official said. "Other diseases likely to spread include dysentery. This can lead to severe dehydration and in extreme cases, death," the official warned. |
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