India flood 'catastrophe' for 500,000 children

Wednesday 27 August 2008
Children in India's northern Bihar province have been forced to flee their homes as the Kosi River breached its banks causing massive floods. Thousands more are at risk as floodwaters continue to spread to nearby villages. Almost 5 million displaced people from over 1,000 villages across 13 districts in Bihar are already living on embankments and roads and this number is likely to rise. These are the worst floods that the affected districts have seen since 1952. More than 225,000 houses have been damaged and 57,411 people have been evacuated so far.

The Government of Bihar has called this a catastrophe and, with the 3km breach in the embankment continuing to grow by 200m a day, more districts are at risk in the coming days. "Without rapid intervention, the worst is yet to come for these and hundreds of thousands more children whose villages are likely to be submerged as the water reaches nearby districts." said Thomas Chandy, Chief Executive of Save the Children in India. "The need is enormous. Children are the most vulnerable and susceptible to diseases and exposure, which are huge risks in disaster situations like this." Save the Children's response Save the Children is already responding to the flooding and will be giving out food, water purification tablets, tarpaulins for shelter and providing medical assistance. We already had a system in place to deliver urgently needed relief supplies to children and their families as soon as the flooding began, and we're now appealing for donations to enable us to reach 10,000 families including 30,000 children. Many districts which lie in the exit path of the flood waters will be affected by the flooding in the next few weeks so the need for rescue and creating alternate shelters is urgent. Chandy continued: "This disaster will increase levels of poverty and desperation.

Children and their families will find it a struggle to survive and these conditions make children more vulnerable to trafficking." The affected state, Bihar, is one of the poorest in India and has the worst malnutrition, child mortality, maternal mortality and child trafficking statistics in the country. In a smaller scale flood response last year Save the Children found that the levels of children trafficked from the state increased in large numbers. According to our assesment, two of the flood-affected districts Arraria and Katiyar have the highest instance of child trafficking. Save the Children will be setting up 'safe spaces' for children in the affected districts, which will provide a secure place for children to play and be looked after while they are displaced from their homes.