Diarrhoea spreads in Bihar relief camps

PATNA: Doctors have diagnosed more than 1,000 acute diarrhea cases in relief camps in the flood-ravaged plains of Bihar, and at least six more people have died of complications from the disease, a health official said on Saturday.

More than 1.2 million people were driven from their homes in the state by the flooding, and about 300,000 are still living in 326 state-run relief camps where doctors are working to prevent disease outbreaks.

Deepak Kumar, the state health secretary, confirmed the six new deaths and more than 1,000 diarrhea cases in relief camps, but said authorities had enough medicine to treat the flood refugees.

Authorities have confirmed 48 deaths from the flooding, but it is widely believed that the final toll will be much higher.

Flood water has drained out of nearly 250 villages, but 750 others are still under up to four feet (1.2 meters) of water in Bihar's five worst-hit districts, state disaster management official Prataya Amrit said Friday.

On Aug. 18, the monsoon-swollen Kosi River, a Ganges tributary that flows from Nepal to India, burst its banks on the Nepali side of the border and flowed into a channel it had abandoned a century earlier.

It flooded more than 1,000 villages and 370,650 acres (150,000 hectares) of farmland in Bihar.

The relief camps will remain open for another six months because it will take that long to repair damaged embankments, homes, highways and village roads, the state's top elected official, Nitish Kumar, said this past week.