World Vision has completed aid distributions in Bangladesh and now is beginning reconstruction. Meanwhile, millions in northeastern India are homeless, following a second episode of severe flooding.

September 12, 2007

By Kit Shangpliang, India Communications, and Raphael Palma, Bangladesh Communications


This year, an especially brutal monsoon season in South Asia has spawned severe flooding, heavy mudslides, and multiple challenges to aid efforts. World Vision teams in India and Bangladesh, however, are continuing to meet critical, ongoing needs.

Bangladesh

Since Aug. 1, teams from our Bangladesh office have assisted more than 31,000 flood-devastated families in the country. These include some 14,300 of the worst-affected families in World Vision program areas, and an additional 17,000 families in a region where we have no ongoing programs, but where the flooding was particularly severe.

Relief efforts in Bangladesh are complete, and our staff now is devising longer-term flood rehabilitation projects. Plans are to provide agricultural assistance to flood-devastated families — including winter vegetable seeds, rice paddy seedlings, and post-flood livestock de-worming — as well as employment opportunities for those who have lost their livelihoods.

India: Second Bout of Monsoon Rains

In neighboring India, however, a second wave of monsoon rains and subsequent flooding has destroyed thousands of homes and bridges, knocked out telephone lines, and left millions homeless in the northeastern states of West Bengal and Assam.

Overflowing rivers and streams have inundated areas in West Bengal, where World Vision has development programs in the Duars and Himalaya regions. Staff members have confirmed that some villages in their project areas were hit by mudslides.

In the Himalaya program area, our staff has reaffirmed that government officials and community groups are helping to ensure the safety of the children and their families.

"One of the village development committees, a community-based group initiated by World Vision, came forward to help the flood-affected families," says Paul Mathai, Duars area manager. "They provided vegetables, lentils, rice, firewood, and candles." A doctor also has been dispatched to check on children who now face the threat of waterborne illnesses.

Though staff members in both development areas report that major relief efforts are not currently needed, they are closely monitoring the situation through the help of community-based volunteers.

India's Bihar State Still Reeling

Meanwhile, relief items from World Vision's South India warehouse now have reached nearly 4,000 families in eastern India's Bihar state, bringing the total of flood-affected families assisted by our teams in the country to more than 20,550 since August.

More than 1,800 families have received food distributions in Bihar's flood-devastated Darbhganga district, where the situation remains gloomy. Floodwaters released from a dam in Nepal continue to gush into the Darbhganga Valley; the prolonged flood situation in the district is bringing misery to the lives of people here, our staff members report.

Because of stagnant floodwater, schools have not yet reopened in Bihar. "Children in small towns are going to school, but schools in villages are still closed because the buildings are still underwater," says P.K. Logun, who directs World Vision's relief operations in the state.

World Vision in India will continue to work with the government, mobilizing relief efforts on behalf of the most vulnerable populations affected by India's recent flooding. Our staff there also will provide updates as they are available.