Severity of Bihar floods intensifies: Five million now homeless and children face measles threat

Children who were forced to leave their homes to escape flooding are now facing severe health threats. The Indian health department has confirmed several cases of diarrhoea and there are reports of an outbreak of measles in the relief camps.

Some of these children will be living in temporary camps until April 2009 following an announcement by the Indian government that the breach in the river Kosi will not be repaired for seven months. Several areas will remain water logged until next year meaning children will be unable to return home, farmers will not be able to get back to work and damaged schools are unlikely to be repaired or rebuilt.

Meanwhile, the scale of the disaster becomes increasingly serious as the number of people forced to leave their homes by the floods rises to five million, including three million children. This is six times the number of people that were made homeless by the cyclone in Myanmar four months ago and 7.5 times the number of people in India that were made homeless after the tsunami in 2004.

Thomas Chandy, head of Save the Children in India, said: “The reported death toll is not high, but the number of people affected by this flooding is on an unimaginable scale. We are facing a huge task and desperately need more money to enable us to reach more of those children who are living in terrible conditions. We must act now to prevent the death-toll rising further as children succumb to disease, hunger or exposure while they wait.”

Children in Bihar were already some of the poorest and most vulnerable even before the floods. Over a million children were working and 600,000 women were married young, before their 18th birthday. Around 56% of children in the state were underweight and 85 children per 1,000 die before they reach their fifth birthday, more than the Indian average of 76 per 1,000.

Mr Chandy continued: “Severe shortage of food, unhygienic conditions and lack of clean drinking water and malnutrition due to the disaster would further increases the levels of hunger and the death rate.”

Save the Children has launched an appeal for the children of Bihar and has already begun responding to the emergency by giving out food, water purification tablets, tarpaulins for shelter and medical assistance.

How to help

If you wish to suport the families of the Bihar Floods, please contact your national Save the Children organisation

Media Contacts

Save the Children has spokespeople available in London and India. For more information and interviews, please contact the Save the Children media unit:

In London: Kathryn Rawe, Media Manager (Asia) on 020 7012 6841 or out of hours on 07831 650409 or email k.rawe@savethechildren.org.uk

In New Delhi: Anuradha C. Maharishi on +91 9811626122 or a.maharishi@savethechildren.in