(REUTERS) FOCUS-India cyclone victims battle hunger, disease
FOCUS-India cyclone victims battle hunger, disease
(updates death toll, adds comments by PM, Red Cross official)
By Sambit Mohanty
JAGATPUR, India, Nov 6 (Reuters) - Malnutrition and
outbreaks of waterborne disease spread through the disaster-hit
eastern Indian state of Orissa on Saturday, eight days after a
violent cyclone and subsequent flooding left millions homeless.
Hundreds of people suffering from gastro-enteritis and
diarrhoea have been admitted to hospitals. Officials said some
who had been marooned for days by floodwaters could have died
from starvation.
"The fear we all have is the possibility of an
epidemic...The need of the hour is to dispose of rotten
carcasses and dead bodies," said Julian Francis, disaster relief
coordinator of the International Federation of Red Cross and the
Red Crescent Societies.
Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, in a message greeting
his countrymen on the occassion of the Hindu festival of lights,
said they must spare a thought for the people of Orissa in their
hour of crisis.
"As we lighten our homes, let us spare a thought for our
brothers and sisters who have been through a harrowing
experience following the ravage cause by the super cyclone in
Orissa," United News of India quoted him as saying.
Officials in the poverty-stricken state put the death toll
at 1,569 but the toll would likely climb steeply once road
access to the worst-affected districts was restored.
RELIEF WORK GAINS MOMENTUM
State officials said they had managed to bring food and
medicines to 90 percent of the 15 million people people hit by
the worst storm to pound coastal Orissa since 1971.
"We have reached about 90 percent of the affected people by
now," state relief commissioner D.N.Padhi told reporters.
The federal government, fearing a rapid spread of cholera
and malaria, has rushed medical teams to Orissa and relief
agencies have been innoculating thousands whose homes were swept
into oblivion by winds of up to 260 km (162 miles) per hour.
In Paradip port and Jagatsinghpur, which took the storm's
full fury, the air was filled with the sickening stench from
bloated human bodies and rotting livestock.
"It will be weeks before the debris and waste can be really
cleared up," said one state government official. "By that time
epidemics are inevitable."
COST OF CYCLONE DAMAGE
Telecommunication links and drinking water supplies have
been extensively restored, but many villages and towns were
still groping in the dark after massive power failures.
Officials say it will cost Orissa at least six billion
rupees ($138 million) to rebuild its power sector.
Agriculture is in ruins, power lines are down and industrial
projects hang in the balance, state government officials said.
The only bright spot in the bleak economic horizon is mining
and minerals that escaped the effects of the two cyclones that
have inundated the coastal region in the past two weeks .
Officials said the country's leading commercial banks had
agreed to provide funds at a very low rate of interest to
finance a state-wide reconstruction programme.
($1 = 43.41/42 rupees)
REUTERS
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