2.5 Million Indians Marooned After Monsoon Flooding Sends River Into Old Channel - AFP

[hatrack]

Indian emergency services on Wednesday rushed supplies to 2.5 million people marooned after heavy monsoon rains caused a river to shift its course, a minister said Wednesday.
Junior agriculture minister Akhilesh Prasad Singh said one million tonnes of rice and wheat would be doled out after the Kosi river breached its banks and flooded huge swathes of the eastern state of Bihar.

The military said it had deployed helicopters and soldiers to reach stranded people after monsoon downpours caused the Kosi to swell, burst its flood levees and flow through a channel it had previously abandoned.

"A couple of days ago just a handful of districts were affected and today there are 15 which are under water," Mukesh Kumar told an AFP correspondent in Madhepura, some 225 kilometres (140 miles) from the state capital Patna.

EDIT

http://www.terradaily.com/2007/080827123241.hqcvhjc9.html

[phantom power]

1. Atchafalaya

[madrchsod]

4. one of these days the river is going to move

and new orleans will be high and dry.

[kestrel91316]

5. ......which in some respects would be a GOOD thing......

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. That is an awful lot of people in trouble. :^(

[hatrack]

3. Yeah, they're saying it looks like the heaviest monsoon flooding in that area in 50 years

Possibly - we'll see how the data pans out.

But it's getting bad in the eastern districts - already reports of food riots and looting.

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. I think this is going to be a very bad century. So many people are going to

be deprived of basic necessities as potable water and food become more and more scarce.

I hope that the people who are in trouble in India right now will be able to get the assistance they need as quickly as possible.