INDIA/BANGLADESH: Emergency medical teams in India and Bangladesh yesterday struggled to save thousands of people taken ill after drinking polluted water and rotten food as south Asia's worst floods in 15 years eased after killing more than 1,350.
Nearly 5,000 medical teams have fanned out across Bangladesh, many in boats, to try to contain diseases as flood waters continued to recede after submerging two-thirds of the impoverished country for the past month.
Authorities had intensified distribution of dry and cooked food and safe drinking water, officials and witnesses said.
Doctors at Dhaka's International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research (ICDDR) said they had admitted about 650 patients on Sunday suffering from dehydration, vomiting and malnutrition, the highest daily number in six years.
"The flow of patients is increasing every day, making it difficult for us to cope," said one doctor, Shahadat Hossain.
Doctors said flood victims had contracted diarrhoeal diseases, while others were suffering from fever, malnutrition and jaundice.
The ICDDR is in the forefront of the battle, having saved over 7,000 patients treated in the centre since the flooding began in early July. No one has died at the centre in that time.
UNICEF said yesterday it had launched a global appeal to raise $13.4 million in emergency aid. In a separate appeal, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies sought more than 10 million Swiss francs ($7.8 million) to help flood victims.
The floods have killed more than 1,350 people across south Asia, at least 660 of them in Bangladesh and the rest in the neighbouring Indian states of Assam and Bihar, officials said.
The worst deluge in 15 years made over 10 million Bangladeshis homeless and affected another 20 million in 43 of the country's 64 administrative districts.
At one point, half of the capital Dhaka was under water. Hundreds have taken refuge on the roofs of buildings in the Dhaka suburb of Jinjira in what have become roof-top slums.
While the weather improves and water levels continued to fall in all rivers in Bangladesh and India, more than 47 people had been reported dead in Bangladesh in the past 24 hours, including 27 from the effects of diarrhoea, raising the national toll to at least 660, officials and reporters in the ravaged districts said yesterday. - (Reuters)