South Asian flood victims angry at lack of help

SEKHPUR, India, Aug 7 (Reuters) Hungry victims of South Asia's worst flooding in years complained today that help was yet to reach them, while in some villages local politicians and officials were caught stealing from meagre stocks of food.

At least 487 people have drowned, died from snakebites, hunger or water-borne diseases, or have been crushed to death or electrocuted since devastating monsoon floods submerged swathes of the subcontinent downstream from the Himalayan mountains.

Hundreds of thousands of people remain marooned or homeless in the worst-hit eastern Indian state of Bihar, more than 10 days after what officials and some residents are calling the worst floods in living memory.

Police said they had fished out 13 bodies of people who drowned in the overflowing Ganges river yesterday when their crowded boats capsized in two separate accidents in Bihar.

Another 50 are still missing, they said, and there were reports of more boat accidents across the state.

Watching muddy flood waters gush over a road leading to his submerged village in Bihar, 23-year-old Rupesh Kumar laughs incredulously when asked if his family had received aid being dropped by air force helicopters.

''Air-drops? Forget those, we have not even seen a helicopter since flooding started 15 days ago, or a government boat,'' said Kumar, a farmer in the impoverished state.

The floods have affected around 30 million people in India, more than 10 million of them in densely populated Bihar alone, and about 20 million in Bangladesh, officials said.

Yet, India has deployed only four helicopters for air-drops in Bihar, despite complaints from United Nations officials that this was completely insufficient.

People have been left to fight over limited food supplies, while in the badly hit northeastern state of Assam, villagers caught seven local politicians and officials stealing and hoarding food meant for the homeless, police said.

''WE ARE STARVING'' In Bihar, thousands of furious people are waiting in makeshift shelters along highways and embankments, from where they gaze across the waters at the roofs of their nearly submerged houses of bamboo and thatch.

''We are starving and almost dying,'' said a weary Radhika Devi, who is in her 40s, as she squatted at the entrance of her flimsy shelter of bamboo poles and a tattered, yellow tarpaulin sheet that fluttered in the wind, threatening to fly off.

''Why doesn't the government listen to us?,'' she said, oblivious to the small snake slithering out of her improvised home by the side of a highway, where she has been living with about 10 relatives.

Devi said her family had received 1 kg (2 lb) of crushed rice from authorities over the past 10 days.

''It didn't even last a day,'' she said.

Officials in Patna, Bihar's capital, said they were doing their best to cope with the ''unprecedented'' flooding but admitted that some people had been missed in relief operations.

''The situation is under control and we are reaching difficult areas through air-drops,'' said Manoj Kumar Srivastava, Bihar's top relief official. ''Relief efforts are in high gear.'' But few believe him in badly hit Muzaffarpur district.

''Instead of giving us food, the police are telling us to get off the roads,'' said farmer Ranjit Kumar.

Some are more incensed at the authorities' perceived lack of preparedness to deal with the monsoon floods -- almost an annual feature in Bihar -- than at being missed by relief efforts, citing the few helicopters and boats.

''It is not like there have never been floods before,'' said Abdul Kalam, a labourer who has lost his home. ''But the way the government has responded, this seems to be the case.'' Waters are receding in Nepal, but there are concerns more rain may soon fall over Asom after a four-day lull, weather officials said.

In Bangladesh, waters were draining from the northern districts to inundate central areas. Weather officials warned that more floods were expected in Dhaka, a city of 11 million.

REUTERS RN DS1300