Disease fears for flood-devastated India, Nepal

0 Comments | AFP, September, 2008

SAHARSA, India (AFP) — Hundreds of thousands of flood victims huddled into makeshift camps in India and Nepal face major disease outbreaks if help fails to reach them quickly, aid workers warned Tuesday.

They said several camps in India's northern Bihar state and across the border in Nepal, areas devastated when a monsoon-swollen river burst its banks and changed course, were already reporting cases of diarrhoea and other crippling illnesses.

A large part of Bihar is under water, with 550,000 people displaced and a further 400,000 people still awaiting rescue, state officials said. According to the UN's World Health Organisation, three million people have been affected in some way.

At least 60,000 people have also had their homes washed away in southern...