People return home to hundreds of thousands of rotting cattle carcasses as floodwaters recede in India

By Vanessa Ko, Harmeet Singh and Sara Sidner, CNN
4 July 2012 (CNN) – Flooding described by India’s prime minister as the worst in recent times, has left at least 95 people dead and almost 2 million others homeless in the country’s remote Assam state. The Brahmaputra river overflowed during monsoon rains over the past week, flooding more than 2,000 villages and destroying homes in the northeast of the country, officials said. Most of the dead were swept away by the fast-flowing water, while 16 were reported to have been buried by landslides caused by the heavy rains. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told journalists Monday that almost half a million people were living in relief camps, and the remaining of the displaced were staying with relatives or living in the open, using tarpaulin sheets for shelter.
Sabir Ali, who lives in one of the affected villages, had to move his family to higher ground with only what they could carry. “I am stuck. How will I survive? I’ve been forced to move to railways tracks with my children,” he told CNN-IBN. But water levels have begun to recede, and thousands have returned to damaged homes. A report issued on Tuesday lowered the number of evacuees to 370,000. Assam’s State Disaster Management Authority reported that at least 14 people are missing. The agency reported that flooding had begun as early as June 24 in some areas and affected all of Assam’s 27 districts. It is considered the worst flooding the state has seen since 2004. Assam’s river island of Majuli experienced its worst flooding since 1950. Prime Minister Singh and Sonia Gandhi of India’s ruling Congress party flew over the flooded areas to survey the damage. Singh announced that an initial 5 billion rupees (US$90 million) would be given in emergency funds to help with recovery efforts. “I have witnessed the extensive damage that the floods have caused. The people of Assam are facing one of the worst floods in recent times,” Singh said in a prepared statement. […]

Devastating India floods leave 95 dead, millions homeless

By ANUPAM NATH Associated Press
3 July 2012 GAUHATI, India (AP) – Thousands of hungry and exhausted people waded through water and returned to their mud-filled homes after leaving relief camps Tuesday as floodwaters began to recede in remote northeastern India. Nearly half a million people took refuge in camps set up in government buildings as the worst monsoon floods to hit Assam state in a decade devastated the region, killing 95 people and leaving 14 others missing since the flooding began last week. Soldiers were using helicopters and speedboats to supply food and drinking water to the nearly 2 million people affected by the floods, Army Lieut. Col. N.N. Joshi said Tuesday. With the waters receding, local officials were considering ways to dispose of the rotting carcasses of hundreds of thousands of cattle that have perished in the floods. Joshi said army soldiers and local officials would bury dead cattle to prevent the spread of disease. In Sonitpur, one of the worst-hit districts of Assam, the stench of dead animals was overpowering. “I am waiting for the water to go down some more before we can remove the carcasses and bury the dead animals,” said Bhim Bahadur, a dairy farmer in Phateki village in Sonitpur, as he sprinkled powdered lime around his house as a disinfectant. Bahadur said more than a dozen of his cows were swept away by the raging current of the Brahmaputra River thundering nearby. The bodies of some of the animals could be seen entangled in a bamboo thicket some distance from his house. “One of the embankments of the river burst, and the water washed into the house and fields, taking away everything,” Bahadur said. […] All 27 districts in Assam have been affected by the floods. Tens of thousands of hectares (acres) of rice and other crops have been washed away in the flooding, which began June 27 with torrential rain. […]

People Return Home as Floodwaters Recede in India